a proper meta essay, for once - on the recent debate about women writing m/m romance

[fanbeatsman]

So metafandom's been giving me a headache recently, first with all the "LOL fan studies"/anti-academic stuff that's been coming out of the Yuletide/AO3/OTW discussions (which I was going to make a big ranty post about, before deciding that it was just another jet of urine in the embarrassing defensive pissing contests that acafen have been responding with,

Comments

[miss_prince]

I've also been following this and raging in various ways, but I'm not really very articulate when it comes to metafandom issues, just generally miffed. Didn't read the whole thing yet, but so far:

to have seen bisexual women dismissed as "not queer enough" in this discussion

What. When the fuck did that happen? Argh >:/

I've also seen a lot of scorn directed at the idea of wanting sexual/romantic narratives "where gender just isn't an issue" Hmm... I certainly differ from you on this one, in that as a lesbian who prefers f/f I've seen plenty of steamrolling over the issues of queer women both in rl and in fandom, and thus at this point in my life I really just want to stand up and scream for some acknowledgement of these issues. BUT, on the other hand, I see the appeal of uncomplicated same-sex sexual/romantic narratives -- and not just for women writing slash, but also for myself; sometimes the world is cruel and I just want to pretend that everyone is magically okay with gay couples and they can walk around and hold hands and

[fanbeatsman]

I'm just constantly raging about it, to the point where I'm having to just give up on keeping up with the conversation, as I'm not sure how much I'm getting out of it except >:(

I certainly differ from you on this one, in that as a lesbian who prefers f/f I've seen plenty of steamrolling over the issues of queer women both in rl and in fandom, and thus at this point in my life I really just want to stand up and scream for some acknowledgement of these issues.*nods* I hear you - I think this is definitely a personal preference on my part, although I'm sure some others share it, and conversely, I definitely understand the desire to have more narratives that actually deal with contemporary queer issues, even if I have to say I very rarely seek them out myself. Which is something that I have actually been thinking a lot about, over the course of this discussion - why it is that I don't feel spoken for by the many calls for more realistic (as loaded a term as that is I can't seem to find a better one :/) depictions of queerness. It

[miss_prince]

I think both are important -- fic that deals with queer issues AND fic that lets queer people be happy and out even if it's unrealistic (I'd read some historical AU that threw out homophobia, so long as the author was up-front about what kind of story they were telling; hell, one of my guilty pleasures is Everyone's Gay fic). I just think the proportions are off, and that's probably because telling a good story about queer issues that's thoughtful or even deep is a lot harder than chucking them out the window.

I think what frustrates me is the lack of concrete examples. I guess it's an attempt not to hurt anyone's feelings, but I really think examples would ground the discussion, as right now it's floating around in semi-hypothetical lala-land at times.

Thank you! I'm alive, I'm here, and now I've got all my stuff, so I'm good :P

[sola]

I would like to give you a big hug for this - not only because it finally helped me get a handle on what is going on (i keep bouncing off the subject like a bug off a window, because nothing will stop my logic process in its tracks like RAAAAGE, especially rage whose feet i can't see) but it also conains a lot of other things for thinking for the queer aneurotypical adult who is just starting to get their hands wrapped around sexuality, period.

And also a big slap in the forehead, because i've had this open in a tab for, clearly, over a week while trying to figure it out and could have saved a hell of a lot of time and agita.

[fanbeatsman]

I'm really glad you got something out of it - I was worried when I posted it that my rage was too specific to me and thus not particularly helpful, but I'm glad it's resonated with you.

One of the feelings I keep coming back to as I keep torturing myself with this debate is the sense that there is a huge conversation about sexuality generally that needs to happen before this particular conversation can really happen effectively. I don't think people are always working from common understandings of how sexuality, sexual makeup, and sexual orientation work; I don't think many of the implicit understandings of these things that are underpinning the arguments I've seen are anywhere near nuanced and complex enough. I'm still having huge, huge issues with how people are using the term fetishisation, and how people are framing gender identity as a locus of sexual desire, and how people are figuring the relation in which sex stands to other aspects of people's lives, and yeah. Still a lot of rage in there, sigh.