How the media misrepresent us (slash in the press)

[lobelia321]

Has anybody read this article on the m/m romance genre, slash and fanfic in the American gay magazine Out? Here is the link: Link to Article.

Read it. See what you think. I never like it when my niche goes mainstream (last year we were on Radio Four, argh; I nearly dropped my morning coffee) but here are some of the issues I have with this particular article:



I read with great interest the article in Out. I do not know any of the people, neither the authors nor the journalist, although it is surely bizarre that an American magazine runs a story on two Cambridgeshire slashers (my neck of the British woods). I peered at the photo to discover where exactly in Cambridgeshire but I couldn't identify the church. Also, quick googling revealed that both the fiction authors are on LJ (huh, the world's a village) and that the journalist twitters.

Several things about this article:

Unfortunately, the women are portrayed in the article as being marginal and even 'freaks'. Fans and slashsibs are of all sorts. The article, by focusing only on two case-studies, reduces the spectrum.

Secondly, the two case-studies reduce the thousand-flowers-blooming reality further by emphasising what the article author takes to be a very unusual, even bizarre, kind of sexuality: I am a penetrative gay man inside. Great, whee, whatever, let those flowers blossom -- but this is not the attitude of the article writer. We are a broad church, and this somewhat glib explanation of the fandom phenomenon is purposely designed to make us look bizarre. I found it very interesting reading about these two women's stories in particular. What I object to is taking their unique lives and making them representative of a) everybody in slash, and b) making them look weird in the process. Which brings me to:

Thirdly, the language reinforces the notion of slash being a very weird and freakish predilection. Some quotations:

Confused yet?

What has been a relatively recent and suprising revelation...

"Why," I ask, trying to take this in

absorbing this revelation I kept asking myself: what revelation?

who are we to judge? Who was even thinking of judging? Only the article author, I presume.

Why are women fans so alienated from their own bodies that they can write erotic fantasies only in relation to a non-female body? (Uncritically quoted from Constance Penley who was, in the 1990s, quite ill at ease with what she had just discovered -- Kirk/Spock! -- and whose sentence is a symptom of a particular moment of feminism -- I think it was a moment of feminism-on-the-wane so perhaps she felt beleaguered. I don't think one can just quote this 15 years later without querying Penley's premises here.)

there was something self-assassinating and a little bit politically disturbing about the M/M fiction I read. Femininity, in this genre, is a culture that is so completely conquered as to be utterly vanquished.

While the men in M/M novels are invariably described as looking like Roman gods, the women -- auxiliary characters such as unwanted wives or nosy scullery maids -- are not portrayed as sexually or emotionally desirable at all. They are usually quite the opposite -- weak, whining simps who cough up blood and lose their hair and/or their minds.
Does Snape look like a Roman god? Does Rodney McKay? Does a wraith? Does an orc? Does Wayne Rooney? Does Dudley Dursley? Does John Rhys-Davies? Does David Mitchell? (All of whom I've written or read.) I object to the word invariably. Yes, by all means, bring on the Roman gods (although shouldn't this read 'Greek gods'? What Roman statues was the journalist thinking of, exactly??) but do not tell me that this is the only thing we are interested in.

Also, and especially, please do not tell me that all the women are portrayed as whining simps...!!!!! Perhaps they are in m/m romance novels (I've not read any in this genre, and after this article I may never try...!) but in fanfiction, this is so patently NOT TRUE. I can't even be bothered to dredge up examples; it seems beneath my dignity to have to prove the point that fans are grateful for any woman character that they can work with. It's not we who turn women into simps; it's the material we are given to work with! And from my own experience in reading fanfic: even the most pathetic female role in some drivelly TV show can be spun into pure narrative gold by slashsibs. (Why do you think am I called Lobelia Sackville-Baggins...? *g*)


Misguided sentence on two counts:
Explicit sex, however, is a necessary evil of writing M/M romance novels -- at least as far as publishers are concerned.
Count One: How many fanfics have you read in your life that contain 'explicit sex'? Yes, that's right, hundreds, if not indeed thousands. None of these was published except on the intrawebs; no author was coerced into the making of these explicit sex scenes. Yes, some authors are not so fond of explicit sex (I've read lots of stories without a whiff of sex and I've read lots of posts where authors talk about their difficulties with writing sex scenes and where others come in to give writing advice), and other authors are extremely fond of explicit sex and write PWPs galore. In sum: the sentence is misguided factually.

Count Two: Baldly stating that explicit sex is an 'evil' assumes that women are pure little innocents wot want their sex watered down into pretty hand-holding and cooking bagels (beagels?) in t'kitchen for each other when they have colds. Yes, indeed, we have all read stories like that but we have also read a thousand others. I object to the reduction of the variety of fandom experience, and especially to the belittling to one of the driving forces of the entire enterprise: the, um, sex. Wot is, of course, evol. Very evol. Especially if it involves Draco being tied to a stake and whipped by Harry. Just sayin'. (Evol. But is it really necessary, dear? Perhaps it's all an unnecessary evol, oh noes!!) In sum: the sentence is misguided ideologically.

I guess partly this language is journalese sensation-mongering (it's always illuminating reading about something you know about in the press: perhaps this is why I've stopped reading the papers because things get distorted). But why did the article-writer have to be so weirded out??

I was not at all surprised myself, nor are these radical new 'revelations'. However, I did not know about these m/m romance imprints! Nobody on my flist has mentioned these, and I shall henceforth post about it and see what people say. (It is true that I have been a bit out of the loop lately so may have missed a controversy here and there, and perhaps it all took place on DW...?) I was also delighted at having immediately identified the fandoms that the authors' original fictions are based on, before I even read the article. I looked at the pirate book cover and said to myself, "Aha, Pirates of the Caribbean! Or Hornblower!" And sure enough, that's how she'd got into the thing.

I did,, however, not like one of the author's attitude to fan fiction as a 'nursery slope'. Nursery slope??? I have read stuff within fanfiction that is tons better than much that is published! Nursery slope indeed. Also, I know at least four published authors whose fan fiction is as good as and, frequently, better than their published works. The ones I admire most are the ones who stay loyal to fandom and don't diss the fans by referring to them as nursery slope bumblers. However, again this may have been distorted by the article author so who knows what was actually said in the interview?

The journal article writer seemed dismayed at the ousting of feminine / feminist might from m/m romance, as if this involved suppressing the feminine and projecting all onto the masculine (or whatever she thought was happening). This shows ignorance of: fandom; narrative theory; reception theory; and life. Fandom is all about women. These are stories written by women for women, and men don't even enter into it. The journalist has confused iconography (yes, men figure within the stories) with semiotic meaning. The signifier is 'man' but is the signified 'man'? And are these stories 'about' men? In terms of reception and narrrative theory, I would argue that they are not. They are addressed to a female audience; they circulate within a female economy; they are debated, read and feedbacked on by women readers; they are written by women and speak to feminine sensibilities, desires, aesthetics, what you will (cultural; genetic; I'll leave this aside for the moment but a feminine public sphere does exist).

One thing the writer has got right and that is that these stories are not pornography (although at various points in the article, she goes and muddles this issue up again). Or we'd have to redefine pornography. I guess she didn't even define it, to begin with.

In sum: bully to the two authors for outing themselves (some of us choose to do this, and go you; and others choose to separate online life and rl rigorously, like me; so I would never say that one strategy is better than another; we all make individual choices here) but not-bully to the article author for delivering ideology along with her facts which are sometimes not facts.

Comments

[vasiliki.livejournal.com]

I read the article with great interest and liked it. I agree with some of your points. In others (like the description of men) you have confused the M/M romance novels the journalist talks about with slash fanfiction. (the protagonists in M/M romance novels are never like Dudley!)

[rhiannonhero.livejournal.com]

I agree that in M/M romance novels the men are always very attractive in description, but I don't understand from the point of view of the journalist why that would be a negative thing. In all m/f romance novels the male is described as exceedingly handsome, and the woman as breathtakingly beautiful. So, why is it wrong in a m/m novel? Or at least not a plus? And to say that all women in m/m romances are ugly or simpering is not true at all!!!

[rhiannonhero.livejournal.com]

Fantastic critique of a crap article. Thank you for sharing this.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I felt moved to respond!

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

Enjoyed this post!

I might write a fic in which there is cooking of beagles. But I expect that would require plenty of warnings.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

What kind of warning, I wonder? *mind boggles with respect to Header etiquette*

[wneleh.livejournal.com]

Great review!

I'm going to include the original article in this week's media refs roundup. May I link to this post as well? I'm about to post, and am linking to this review - if you want this changed, please let me know and I'll remove the link. But I've no clue when I'll again have a free stretch of time this weekend, so don't want to wait to post.



- Helen

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Yes, er, feel free to link (many days retrospectively...) :-)

[daria234.livejournal.com]

here by the rec from fanthropology.

Great review. I'm glad I don't have to go read the article. I thought the distinction between semiotic meaning and the signifier was especially useful, as is the play by play of how the article Other-izes slash.

Thanks!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

You're welcome!! Thanks for commenting!! *ogles icon* (Who are those men?)

[xtricks.livejournal.com]

I'd suggest taking a look at the range of m/m before getting too sharp about the article in reference to that. While, like with all writing, there is a range of variation, much m/m work I've read does pretty much fall into fairly regressive sterytypes (good looking men, clingy, undesired women, lots of romance novel cliches etc). There was also a fandom upheaval fairly recently about m/m fiction and who writes/who is it for/etc.

There is, of course, as an above poster mentioned good work s well, just like there is good work in standard romance among all the bad.

As to the freak quotient? They're talking about women and sex, of course it's freakish (/sarcasm).

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I am totally not au fait with the m/m romance genre; didn't even know it existed! I find it intriguing that it does, and in some ways totally awesome. Just don't like my own neck of the woods dissed. *runs around screeching in freakish fashion*

[nialla]

Here via fanthropology. I read the article when it was first published and had a similar reaction.

I have read some works by Alex Beecroft. I thought False Colors was good. You can read a review (not by me) at Dear Author, which is a romance review blog. They're equal opportunity and review romances that aren't just M + F = HEA (happily ever after).

Explicit sex, however, is a necessary evil of writing M/M romance novels -- at least as far as publishers are concerned.

This is actually true for print and ebook publishers, which is a whole different kettle of fish from slash or even het. The publishers will outright tell you the raunchier they get, the more they sell, especially for ebooks. I think maybe an ebook version frees up the reader from "cover embarrassment" that many readers, including myself, often have.

I think the journalist is conflating fanfic and m/m novels quite a lot. Yes, the novelists often got their start in fanfic, but the two genres (for lack of a better term) are not the same. There a similar yet different rules at play, sort of how the horror, science fiction and fantasy genres are often under the same umbrella, but have different rules. Making things even more confusing is there's a lot more "mashups" of genres these days, such as paranormal romance.

Slash has been around for 40 years, and went through a big "discovery" phase when people first had Internet access in the 90s. In the last few years, I've been seeing a new discovery phase -- gay men and lesbians getting into fandom because there are canon gay couples.

In most fandoms, historically it's been primarily straight women, with some women being lesbian, bi, or trans, but very few men at all. Now there are gay men and women who might otherwise never be in a fandom discovering there's a decades old world of mostly straight women taking male characters who are generally straight in canon and writing them as gay. Instead of waiting for the real thing, we sort of did it ourselves. ;)

On one message board for an American soap opera with a canon gay couple, my guesstimate was the active members were about 50% gay men with the rest being women of various orientations, and not all of the women were familiar with slash either. I actually started a "Slash 101" thread trying to explain the history of slash that was open to questions.

I think most of the guys were more than a bit puzzled by it all, at least at first, but came to see there were a lot of straight women who considered themselves gay allies (note that not all slash writers/readers do though) and they had no idea they were there and are rather intrigued by it. I know some gay men are still a bit skeeved by it though, seeing it as invasion of gay culture by straights.

I'm a fan of fandom history, especially slash, and I'm always interested in how we see ourselves and how others see us. We slashers may not all fall into the same denominations and even have a few holy wars at times, but we do "get in" and share a common interest.

Most with no real experience with slash think of it as one giant alien entity they can judge by reading a few fics and cover blurbs on the books. You can't do that with any genre, especially if you're not really into it in the first place. Sturgeon's Law says "90% percent of everything is crud" and it's very difficult to find the 10% even if you're in familiar territory. Something I lament every time I start following a new fandom.

Sorry for the ramble. :)

[msilverstar]

I agree with you: the article generalizations have problems and really misrepresent the sweep of fandom, but it's not entirely wrong. Slash is still such a new weird thought to so many people, I have some sympathy. Also, 90% of everything is crap.

[everworld2662.livejournal.com]

A lovely critique of a truly heinous article, however, I do feel uncomfortable with this line:

Fandom is all about women. These are stories written by women for women, and men don't even enter into it.

Whether or not this is actually the case, is this really what we want? Personally, I was irritated by the article's bald statement that the majority of ficcers being heterosexual, female college graduates. If this is true...isn't it something we should want to change, rather than triumphantly declare? I like the niche staying a niche too, but I want some LGBTQ & male involvement in my fandom, thanks. And I think there is a lot of that, too, and that it frequently gets underrated because an LGBTQ person writing slash is nothing interesting, but a heterosexual, educated female? Hubba hubba. Who knew they had that in them?

...I am now so disgusted with the modern press that I can't finish this comment. In other words: thank you for your critique, with only one middling reservation ^__^

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your comment! Two things: one is an aspect of description, and that is, as it is currently constituted, fandom is predominantly female. I maybe twisted things a bit when I wrote 'men don't even enter into it' but certainly mostly men don't enter into it. As to my own personal preferences/kinks/buttons to be pressed: nah, I'm not interested in the fannish mens. *g* Everyone else? Bring them on. But hey, that's just me. ;-)

[xturncoatxiii.livejournal.com]

I've read plenty of m/m erotica written by gay men that read exactly like mediocre slash fic. This isn't to excuse the primarily female-driven m/m romance novel market, but it's not like it's only the silly wimmins writing pointless, raunchy drivel.

I also think that they should have addressed the point that not everyone who writes slash isn't a heterosexual female. Yes, they say "the majority of", but don't explicitly mention the queer female slashers, the straight and queer male slashers, and the other miscellaneous queers who read and write queer fanfic.

I'm not very surprised that this article makes the same sweeping generalisations, but I can't say I'm particularly pleased either. Hello, erasure, how are you today?

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Aha! The silly mens write pointless raunchy drivel, too? Good to know! *sigh*

[msilverstar]

From the inside, the article looks wrong on a number counts. But many people have never really considered slash, even if they've ever heard of it -- not a few years ago, I thought Kirk/Spock was just icky, like the author. The article has a fair amount right about it as well, the women portrayed look like a whole lot of fandom, it's sympathetic rather than accusational.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

You thought Kirk/Spock icky? Wow. Interesting! And why?? (Considering, er, what you have become... *g*)

[reading-is-in.livejournal.com]

"Nursery slope??? I have read stuff within fanfiction that is tons better than much that is published! Nursery slope indeed. Also, I know at least four published authors whose fan fiction is as good as and, frequently, better than their published works"

Yes, yes. Quite. I have experience in the pro-world and the fan world. Trust me, a lot of this stuff is better, for purely market reasons.

Further, I thought there was an odd discrepancy in the article between the supposedly utopian acknowledgement that love knows no gender and the woman's desire to be a man. If she does, ok, fair enough, but you're quite right that that oughtn't be made to look represenative. I'm a woman, thanks, who likes slash, and only dates men who at the very least don't mind that, at sometimes are positively enthusiastic about it.

Oh one other thing - I disagree that fandom is female. There are men here. Fewer, but they are about :).

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I've come across two men in fandom. The first time it was an anomaly and somehow cute (and turned out that the man was primarily there to court a fellow-fan; I believe they're married now and have a kid!!), and the second time I was somewhat weirded out. That's how rare it is! *g* Anyway, I never think about the men who might be floating around; they tend to be off my radar and that shows how few there are.

Now what interested me was what you said here: I have experience in the pro-world and the fan world. Trust me, a lot of this stuff is better, for purely market reasons. When you say 'a lot of this stuff', did you mean the published stuff or the non-published stuff?

[princessofg.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU!!!!!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

You're welcome!!!!

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

Why are women fans so alienated from their own bodies that they can write erotic fantasies only in relation to a non-female body?

You know, I doubt anyone has ever asked a man who is turned on by the idea of F/F sex why he is so alienated from HIS own body.

Generally, the issue is a non-sequitor. Most women neither write nor read slash due to 'self-alienation.' They read it because they like it, and sometimes the reasons they like it are complex. The number of self-identified lesbians writing awesome M/M slash in my fandom illustrates that point very well.

They are addressed to a female audience; they circulate within a female economy; they are debated, read and feedbacked on by women readers; they are written by women and speak to feminine sensibilities, desires, aesthetics, what you will (cultural; genetic; I'll leave this aside for the moment but a feminine public sphere does exist).

Exactly. Slash is primarily written by and for women. We don't need anyone telling us what we should want to write and read, and doing so kind of smacks of the notion that women aren't smart or evolved enough to figure that out for themselves. Oh, the irony...

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I know. My eyes are popping out of their sockets with all the rolling they're having to do. ;-) Hah, in many ways slash helped me to identify more with my body (whatever 'identifying' with one's body actually means in practical terms...)

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I really liked the article. I agree with you on few points (especially on the fact that the author seems to make judgements but pretends not to) . At the same time - I liked the portrait of the authors that was still emerging.

I do not know any of the people, neither the authors nor the journalist, although it is surely bizarre that an American magazine runs a story on two Cambridgeshire slashers (my neck of the British woods).

I don't think the choice was surprising at all - Beecroft and Erastes are among few best-selling and most "prominent" writers of m/m fiction (together with Josh Lanyon who was also mentioned). I didn't even know they are British, this was interesting.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I guess I didn't mean 'bizarre' as in 'why were they chosen?' but as in 'how strange that both of them should be living within a few miles of me'. The word 'bizarre' was possibly misused here; more: weird coincidence! Is East Anglia now a slasher hub or what? ;-)

[nahco3.livejournal.com]

this is a great post. and this: Does Wayne Rooney? made me laugh a lot.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, I slashed the Rooney when he was totally uncanon... *cackles*

[snorkackcatcher]

Interesting article and response. I think you're being just a bit unfair on Cintra Wilson -- yeah, she's clearly thoroughly confused by the whole slash thing, but a lot of what she said was just repeating what the interviewees said, and they're somewhat atypical. (Erastes used to be on my flist when she was in HP fandom (under another name), and often had her own approach to things.) I guess it's just par for the course for a journalist to not fully 'get' their subject. :)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I was wondering about the interviewees! I don't know them and as they're floating around at the margins of my own world I didn't want to get too much into them as that would have been more fanwankery than critique of media representation. I guess I would hope that actual fans or former fans would stand up for us in intelligent ways but then I also know that the media distorts what interviewees actually say...

[tinlizzie82.livejournal.com]

An article about M/M romances (and by extension slash fandom) written in a gay magazine by a journalist who freely confesses she "doesn't get it." *boggles*

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I know; it's weird, isn't it? Why, one wonders, why?

Here via metafandom

[soukup.livejournal.com]

Very thought-provoking article! Thanks for pointing it out.

But why did the article-writer have to be so weirded out??

This struck me as deeply rude as well, along with everything else you've outlined here. I can't stop thinking that an uninitiated person reading this article will come away with the impression that slashers are all female-bodied people who secretly want to be men (and with no idea that femmeslash even exists!).

Question: have you contacted the journalist? This essay is very carefully thought-out, and she might find it really enlightening.

Re: Here via metafandom

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Interesting question, and no, I haven't contacted the journalist. Nor, I have to confess, do I want to. But if somebody else would... I just can't see she'd 'get it'. Maybe she writes these articles and moves on. The thing is, even if you're a closet slasher and pretending not to be into it, your lust will out and you will not constitutionally be able to make remarks such as the 'us and them' comments she makes.

[aeslis]

Here via Metafandom!

I agree wholeheartedly that language can slant an article and create an atmosphere around something that it doesn't necessarily need. Lots of articles, columns, what-have-you are incredibly biased, but it's hard to see that unless you're knowledgeable about what's being biased against. It sort of makes me wonder what the author's intention was, however. Clearly to bring attention to m/m works to the greater public, but then to shine a negative, 'this is weird' light on it seems deconstructive of that intention. Very odd, and I agree with many of the points you made. I think there's every right to be annoyed.

However, one thing you said jumped out at me: Fandom is all about women. These are stories written by women for women, and men don't even enter into it.

I don't agree with this... These stories are written (primarily) by women and (primarily) for women, but the fact that they are about men means that the men do, in fact, enter into the equation. And unfortunately I've seen in many fandoms that there's a lot of sexism running rampant. Canonical women characters often get shunted aside or turned into bitches because they're "in the way" of the main romance. There is often very little that's empowering to women in the stories themselves... So I think there really is a lot of suppression of the feminine within the stories (although in some fandoms, the men get femmed up, it must be said).

Just some thoughts!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Interesting, re the 'bitchy' fandoms. I guess in something like SGA authors made a lot of Teyla and the few other women that existed, and god, I've read wonderful sex-change stories where a man wakes up in a woman's body. I suppose for me the men in the stories aren't 'men'; they're women's representations of men and perhaps that's what I mean.

It's true, as you say, that there are stories with bitchwomen and borewomen; I, too, have read them but I've also filed them away in the badfic category... *g*

[wicked-liz.livejournal.com]

I could barely finish that bloody article! It pissed me off so much and I intend to send an email to the editor.

It's poorly researched and portrays fans of slash fiction, in a very condescending and subjective narrative, as self-hating women escaping the confines of their sex by reading/writing m/m PORN. I really found it disgusting that the writer did so little research into the slash genre that the question of fiction ratings never crossed their mind.

That the interviewer seems determined to paint women who enjoy the idea of men together as people uncomfortable with their vaginas makes me wonder if she's ever questioned why men enjoy girl on girl play so much - are they afraid of their penises?

Okay then, I just went back and read your commentary (the article fired up my wank-radar) and you basically had the same problems I did. I think one of the author's problem may have been that she has been raised in a patriarchal society where her idea of a "man" is based on the old Mills' & Boon archetype. The type who inevitably discovers his heart from by means of the innocent female - re: Beauty & The Beast.

She is a product of her Disney generation.

She mentions Brokeback Mountain, yet only as a "gay film", never analysing the story line of despairing romance, on the level of "Wuthering Heights". In an age where characters like Bella Swan are thought of as heroines the author herself is blinded by the fact that in slash fiction, females have taken on the role of authorial direction.

She never bothers with the history of female authors, the ridicule and harassment they faced.

She never condescends to imagine that in slash fiction there could be stories that are deeply compelling, that are about characters and plot beyond that of 'mere' m/m bromance.

However as a fan of the science fiction genre, I've grown accustomed to the arrogance of the mainstream media, their world view is narrow indeed.

[wicked-liz.livejournal.com]

Though I do think that by the end of the article that she seemed sympathetic, I'm not sure who the sympathy was directed at - are slash fans women in need of pity and understanding.