Part Deux - The Motivation Behind Slash
Discussing slash in fandom (some reasoning as to why 'all the cool kids do it!').
As I was thinking about the different male characters I've grown so attached to over the years, I again had a good chuckle over the fact that I've also 'slashed' so many of them. Why? Why do so many female fans slash boys? (I mention female because I do believe slashing males is a predominantly female practice, only because from my observation males tend to be a bit more homophobic concerning their own gender.) Males do it too, just not as rampantly.
Well, I am not a male, so I can't really speak for the reasons males do or do not slash. But I just so happen to be female, and can talk a bit about why I personally have slashed characters, and why I think other girls (and, perhaps people in general) do it too. Again, I'll be using personal examples that should be easy enough for you to supplant with your own.
Let me take a trip down memory lane, to the very first pair of boys I ever slashed.
Yuugi Mutou and 'Yami no Yuugi' from Yu-Gi-Oh!.
(Image chosen because I daresay it has become the most popular Puzzleshipping image available to North American fans, and I have no idea how or why this came to be true.)
It's funny because when I first fell in love with the series, I fell in love with Yuugi myself and wrote fanfiction in which we dated and had adventures together (but never kissed!). I still have a lot of this fiction in old notebooks I've kept and it's now obvious to me that I never really saw Yuugi as more than a personal hero and 'friend', but when you're 13 and you like a boy character you tend to assume it has to be a crush. Remember that I'd never had a platonic (or romantic for that matter) relationship with a boy then. My pseudo-crush on Yuugi went on for a few months, until I made a new friend over the series who had the internet (I didn't). She let me stay up late on her computer reading fanfiction, and I read all kinds of Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfiction. Mostly it was gen fiction because at that time I had no idea what shipping was! I was also petrified of romantic feelings and was an incredibly shy and sheltered Christian girl. But of course, I eventually stumbled upon ship!fic (I think the first was Yuugi/ Mai, which I wrinkled my nose at) and a few fics later I probably happened upon Yuugi/ Yami. (I know Yami is an incorrect name for the spirit, but he has so many false names anyway and honestly, it's the first name I knew him by and it's the easiest to use. SO SORRY IF IT MAKES YOU THINK OF YAMS!)
At first I may have thought it was gross, I honestly can't remember. But I do remember thinking about the idea of Yuugi and Yami being 'together' one day as I got off the bus for school. I was surprised to find that I thought it was kind of cute. "But why?" I had to wonder. After all, wasn't it wrong for two boys to be together?
After that day, I have no memories concerning the ship except for, well, shipping it. I don't really know what made me decide it was okay. Probably the same thing that made me decide that liking and watching Yu-Gi-Oh! itself was okay. When I first got into the series I had a serious moral dilemma as a Christian child. I prayed to God to forgive me for watching such an evil show and apologized profusely but pleaded that I just couldn't help it, it made me so happy... I couldn't stop watching it. So I didn't. Even though my parents didn't like it, they didn't really know much about it and they didn't watch the shows I watched, so they couldn't do much but 'tsk!' when they saw my Yu-Gi-Oh! merchandise.
I don't really know how or why, but Puzzleshipping (the affectionate name given to the Yuugi/ Yami no Yuugi ship) was the first 'gay' or male/ male couple I ever accepted, and although it didn't seem so at the time, that was a big deal. If I never had this experience as a 13 year old, I may have grown older still harboring the conservative Christian belief that 'being gay is nay okay' and it may have hardened in my mind as I let go of my childish wonder, curiosity and acceptance. If I never met the friends I met because of Yu-Gi-Oh! (and later anime) I could have easily turned out very differently. I could have made different friends who were less open-minded, whom I would have tried to change myself for and may never have gone through the spiritual revolution I have because of... yes, dare I say it? Fandom. And shipping.
The whole proposition sounds laughable, I know, but it's true. I credit fandom as the spark and continual inspiration for the many changes I've gone through as a character over the years. And were it not fandom, it could have been something else. But for me, it wasn't something else... it was doodling boys kissing in my notebooks and writing about how much they're 'meant 2 be'... and it was/ is that way for a lot of other people too.
But this brings us back to the question, why boys? And why slash? Why do girls become so infatuated with the idea of male/ male infatuation?
Well, there are a lot of reasons. They're different for every person who likes slash. But here are some common themes I believe to be true for most slashers. I'll also get to some more specifically personal reasons later.
Have you noticed that many of the most popular ships seem to be from incredibly popular adventure series? I mean to make the point that the most ragingly fawned over slash ships usually aren't from romance series. They're from gen series, and often series in which the male protagonists have a 'hinted' female romance partner, and are not canonically gay. So why the male/male ship? Why do so many girls prefer to slash boys in place of shipping one of the boys with the female that is obviously 'supposed' to be the love interest?
The nature of gen series (or any genre series save romance) is that they do not focus on a romance, and are usually plot-driven. Or, if you prefer, the plot isn't a romantic plot. It's usually an adventure plot. And... the main character is usually a boy. We could discuss the 'problems' with this truth, but that's not the point I'm tackling right now. It's also important to note that although people slash everything (from Looney Tunes characters to live-action actors), I believe the practice is most common among people who like anime. Anime fans seem to be the most outspoken about slash, anyway. I don't have any divine wisdom on why that is, but I can say that because of this, a lot of the most popular slash couples are from the most popular anime series, which are ironically made for boys. I'm talking about Shounen. Shounen series are traditionally targeted towards young males, but of course are enjoyed by people of all ages and gender.
The problem with Shounen is that, while often creating interesting female characters, it almost always lacks the formation of a significant bond with the male protagonist and the awesome female character. Another problem is that many Shounen series do severely lack awesome female characters.
But again, even the series that have great females do not usually emphasize the male and female friendship. Instead the female is almost always a love interest for the male. Ironically, the writers then spend much less time and effort trying to convince you that the male and female are compatible. The audience is meant to assume that the two are 'meant 2 be' and more focus and attention is given to developing the bonds between the male protagonist and his best male friend, comrade, or rival. The plot is often directly tied to a serious dilemma that causes the male protagonist and his friend/ rival strife, and often a rift is formed in the relationship between the two. This rift is often either caused because of or for the purpose of the strife, and the plot exists to solve the dilemma keeping the two boys separated (physically or emotionally) or at odds with each other.
NO SUCH PLOT DEVICE IS GIVEN TO THE MALE FEMALE RELATIONSHIP. Instead, the female is usually a comforter in this triad of characters... consoling one or both boys, pushing them to make amends. Sometimes both boys are supposedly in 'love' with this female character, and in the end of the story she is a reward to one of them for reconciling their differences. Instead of outstanding as an interesting character in relation to the plot, the female remains isolated from the action and yet stands on a pedestal, carrying a wisdom neither of the boys seem to have. She is both hallow and more mature than the boys, often emanating motherly qualities. (And let's face it, mothers are uninteresting when you're a kid and you'd rather watch two boys knock each other's brains out, than see the goody-goody girl rationalize to them why 'fighting is bad mmk' and so the 'girl' scenes are kept to a strict minimum.) All of this can sometimes make the female an intriguing character but ultimately causes a partition between her and the males because she is on a higher step than they are. She is not involved in the resolution of the story because the boys are going through changes that the female has already solved for herself. This causes the gap between the sexes to multiply two-fold. Not only are the boys boys and the girls girls, the girls and boys are emotionally functioning on two different planes for most of if not all of the story.
Why do writers do this- continually cast males and females into the same stereotypical roles? Again, there are many reasons, I'm sure not all of which are conscious.
But one reason is that traditionally, Boys Like Girls, so in a series about a male protagonist, it is assumed the boy should have a girl to like. It is also a fact that boys fight less with girls. Shounen series are often about elaborate action-based adventures, and so the antagonist to the hero character (male protagonist) is almost always cast as a fellow male, because... 'that's just how things work'. Boys fight boys. Boys fall for girls. (See also: REASONS WHY MARRIAGES FAIL~!)
There is a very heavy disconnect in society between boys and girls. Boys pine after girls because they have sexual desires often ruffled by the female physique, but most boys do not grow up with very close female friends. As such, many boys do not want or understand female friends. They want female romances. And they expect these romances to be different than their friendships with fellow men. Conversely, females want the exact opposite from men. They want boys to be their friends, because females believe that they are meant to fall in love with a man whom they can share their most innermost desires with, that they cannot share with their female friends. Both want nothing but to be close to each other, but always assume the wrong ways in which to become closer. In the end, this sets the genders apart because they both misunderstand each other's aims and desires, and in frustration decide to call the whole thing off. This same misunderstanding is repeated throughout media, because the people creating media are obviously themselves partakers and now perpetrators of this divide between the sexes.
It is interesting to note that one way fandom deals with this divide is through gender-swap fiction and art, but that's another matter.
Because of the age-old tales about boys and girls and their relations with each other, it is very rare that series buck the gender roles and cast the characters differently. Sure, we still get interesting and well-constructed characters... and I do mean to include males and females in that statement. The problem is, I don't think we get many interesting or well-constructed male and female character dynamics.
As I mentioned above the story will often surround the two males, be they best friends or rivals, or even rivals that become best friends... and the female will remain a motivator or comforter. She is given much less screen time and the boys are thrown all of the interesting action and story developments. The girl may even be included in the backstory, but the backstory will not usually depend upon the female whilst if one were to remove one of the males from the backstory, it would not make any sense or would possibly not even exist, because the story is all about the males and their relationship, and the female is simply a tagline.
Also as I mentioned above, because boys generally fight each other more than girls, it is very important to emphasize their fights and 'make-ups' so that the audience understands that the boys were 'just being boys' or that their issues have been resolved, and the fights make their relationship stronger. The boys go through many of these fights over the course of the series. Whilst the boys may bicker with the girls, they will almost never truly fight with them the same way they fight each other. So while the boys are becoming bestest buds, the boy and girl are often annoyed with each other over petty matters and their problems with each other are never addressed because they are unwilling to actually fight with each other or truly open up to each other. The reason the boys are willing to do this with each other is because they learned from an early age that they were similar to other males and could eventually come to understandings with fellow boys. At the ages they appear in Shounen series, boys have usually never had much experience with girls, and girls are 'different' and so the boys shy away from them but at the same time crave to be closer to them... but the boy mind craves this closeness not in comraderie like it should, and rather in physical intimacy which is precisely what is usually missing from their relationships with fellow bros. I'm sure this all sounds very confusing but hopefully you're still following me.
So it is that in most gen series, the best friends are boys and a lot of development is put into their relationship so that the audience can see their friendship grow. The female is cast as a love interest, and less development is put into her relationship with the males because She Is Pretty and He Wants Her and the rest can be assumed, and the writers don't really care to expand upon the friendship because (obviously) that plot strand is very boring... but also seen as necessary, because you just can't have an adventure without 'love'.
Another thing to note is the reason that female love interests are often heavily hinted at but never 'confirmed' is the writers do not want to alienate any potential viewers, and again, since the target audience for these series is young males, it is assumed that most young males do not want to watch as many romantic developments as they would like to watch dynamic action and heavy boy character drama. If a lot of time were spent developing a romance, a lot of writers believe they would lose some of their viewers. What they fail to consider is the fact that they may also gain a significant amount of new viewers for a new sub-plot. But, it's also important to consider the fact that a romance in any form might be distracting and extremely uninteresting compared to the main story plot or premise of the series anyway, predominantly male audience or not.
I would like to make a side note here and say that there are also a lot of female-targeted series (in anime and manga they would be called Shoujo) that do focus on the female and male relationship, but still cast the characters in the shallow roles of romantic objects rather than close friends and sequentially lovers. WHY?! Because the people writing these series do not realize that they completely misunderstand the sexes- opposite and ironically their own. The females writing these series are the females that pine for a male partner but do not know how to befriend a male and view boys as objects of affection just as boys view girls as objects of desire. I said that females usually want to be a boy's friend instead of their lover, which is true, but even girls who want this misinterpret their feelings or are fooled by society's standards for love, and think that a man is a potential husband, not a potential best friend. A boy is not someone they can go to the movies with (after all, boys like different movies than girls), not someone they can 'bitch' at (bitching is reserved for fellow bitches, you see), and not someone they can take shopping or doing anything they like as a girl, because 'boys just like different things than girls' which isn't true but society makes people believe that it is so. Society makes people believe that men and women cannot 'be friends', but all over the world that is all the sexes want to be. They just don't realize how they can be, or even that they can be at all.
PHEW. That was a mouthful.
All of this complicated gender confusion basically fuels the fact that females and males are both mis-represented in media, but it just so happens that there are more males writing and more males being created, and thus more males are breaking the gender barrier than females.
So females, who want to see males as potential friends, glob onto the male friendships in media. And either because they just like love in general or because they see boys and 'insta-crush', they see their favorite male friendships as 'more'.
And honestly, it is not that hard to make such assumptions.
Not only does the development of the story support stronger relationships between men than between men and women... the imagery for series media is absolutely hilariously painfully exclusionary of females; even when the females are as much 'main' characters as the secondary males.
The boys for these series are all shown doing much more interesting things with each other than they are with the girls, because they are better friends and so it's easy for the people making art for the series to draw them, while it is difficult to think of what they can have the boys and girls doing together... because the boys and girls really don't know each other all that well. What would they be doing together besides pining for sexual affection or wondering awkwardly what to talk about?
Because the series is on my mind, and because it is outrageously popular, I'll be referencing Kingdom Hearts as an example.
Look at the cover image above. I know we can all admit that Riku and Sora are 'just friends' and that Sora supposedly has a crush on Kairi... but then why the hell did the artists encase Sora and Riku in a heart together in the background? A romantic heart, the symbol that adorns Valentine's boxes and candies all over the world! Sure it's the symbol of the series and represents their memories together and yatta yatta- I really don't care. It's still hilarious because it's still a romantic heart and I have to assume the artists either did this on purpose as a buck to the preposterousness of Kairi's role or they're just laughably oblivious. (The only way they could have made this image more hintingly gay is to draw Sora and Riku actually facing each other, and frankly I'm surprised they didn't. I suppose they just wanted to emphasize the fact that Sora and Riku's love affair is hindered by their separation from each other for the majority of the game.)
I'm sure most of you reading have played the games or are at least somewhat familiar with them, but for those of you who aren't I won't spoil too much. But there's a point in the second game in which Sora is reunited with his two friends after over a year of separation. The two friends are his best friend Riku and his supposed crush Kairi. The trio grew up on an island playing together, and while Riku and Sora were rivals of sorts (but also bro-biffles), Sora and Kairi definitely crushed on each other. In the the first game Riku runs off, succumbing to his dark desires and at one point (I hope I'm remembering correctly, I haven't played the first game in so long) kidnaps Kairi and tries to turn her into a Heartless. (I could spend time explaining Heartless to those of you out of the loop, but it really is as literal as it sounds... this is Disney after all.) In order to save Kairi, Sora becomes a heartless himself, and this creates the plot for the second game in which alternate identities are born from people who at some point or another, become Heartless as Sora, Kairi and Riku have all done (because Riku is a fucker).
Back to the second game, because of Riku's folly the trio of friends (and their other buddies like Donald and Goofy, etc. but that's slightly unimportant to my current discussion) are thrown through a series of time warps and other such nonsense but the IMPORTANT thing to note is they are separated from each other. The player spends the entire second game looking (as Sora) for friends Kairi and Riku. Upon reuniting with said friends, Sora is glomped by Kairi. Sora hugs Kairi back, but does not do so as enthusiastically as one would assume he might for having such a notable 'crush' on her.
Riku is off to the side, wearing the skin of another man because KINGDOM HEARTS IS ON DRUGS but anyway. Riku is ashamed for his mistakes and doesn't even want Sora to recognize him through his disguise. Kairi outs him though and Sora...
DROPS TO HIS KNEES AND SOBS.
(You may watch said scene here if you so wish.)
In reality this excess of emotion over Riku on Sora's part is just because they are better friends than he and Kairi, who has fallen victim the the male and female dynamic I explained earlier in this entry. Still, it is not that hard to think of Sora and Riku as more than best friends because of this, simply because the female love interest is so boring. I apologize to Kairi fans, and to be fair I think Riku is pretty boring too... but he is certainly more interesting than Kairi, at least in relation to Sora, because his relationship with Sora is much stronger and more developed. (Although I do commend Kingdom Hearts for strengthening Kairi's role for the second game and further in later installments.)
In the end, I feel no shame for shipping Sora and Riku because the fact of the matter is they are far more interesting together than Sora and Kairi are. Sora and Riku have banter and cheekiness and apparently SORA SOBS IN RIKU'S ABSENCE (significant for a boy who is so upbeat and optimistic) and the two are basically the very cute, Disney-Square version of the BROMANCE all females desire to have with people, specifically boys whom they always feel excluded from. Much like Kairi! If you watch the scene I linked to, you'll see that Kairi is very pointedly left out of the Sora Riku hug. All three are 'equally' friends, and yet Sora and Kairi hug... Sora and Riku hug... But Kairi and Riku do not hug... and the three DO NOT hug together.
Furthermore, Goofy and Donald do not hug, and I am very upset by this fact. But I don't think most people watching this scene care about Goofy and Donald the way that I do. [/Disney weaboo]
I'm just trying to say that although Kairi may be an alright girl on her own, in the scheme of things she isn't as important as Sora and Riku and definitely not as notable and let's just face the facts... she doesn't have sexy Riku hair. Riku has sexy Riku hair, even if he doesn't say much... and Sora is obviously more effected by Riku emotionally than he is by Kairi, despite earlier in-game having a romantic fantasy over her. (A very shallow boy-like one though, in which they are dancing and doing nothing significantly relationship-building and it would be so easy to argue that Sora only had that fantasy because he simply doesn't know any better about girls or his feelings for Kairi- or Riku for that matter.)
So the question is not "Why boys?", and is rather why NOT the boys?
They are so much more compatible. (Because love does not spring from common interests or romantic fantasies; rather true love springs from shared experience and emotional intimacy. Something it is very rare to see boys and girls genuinely sharing on screen, but is overly-abundant between males on screen.)
That example concludes my reasoning for what I believe is the most obvious motivator behind slash. But as I mentioned earlier, there are scores of other motivators.
I think one of the sweetest ways to look into the motivation behind slash is to consider the fact that it also occurs simply because people (but mostly girls) want to reassure themselves that love is not about appearances or conditions (gender) and is rather about emotion and strong, open relationships.
Of course, there are the slash fans that simply mash the two prettiest male characters in a series together and call it good, but often the girls who do this have simply caught the bug after initially falling in love with a very deep male bond. This happened to me after I accepted Puzzleshipping. My friends and I would ship boys just because they were boys and just because they were cute, but I think we only did that because we were trying to replicate the feelings we got from the couple that started it all and we just didn't understand why slash and shipping appealed to us; only that it did.
I believe this confusion is what feeds the other slash trend, in which girls develop a crush on one of the boy characters and identify with another of the male characters, and so they ship the two males, but when they write or draw the males together it ends up sounding an awful lot like every heterosexual female's Mary-Sue fic. The girl takes the boy they see as a relatable character and/ or 'role model' and the boy they see as a fictional romantic interest and 'marry' the two ideals, if you will.
It becomes a fantastic ideal relationship they'd love to see them self in one day. The added plus of writing about males being in love with each other, even when one of those males is emulating female characteristics, is that the female author then feels safe exploring love because she is writing about a relationship in which there is no female 'awkwardness' or exclusion. There is no gender barrier keeping the two lovers from connecting openly. In other words, the author does not feel rejected for being female, because she is not writing about a male and female romance (even though really, she is, because whatever she's writing it's really not the way a romance would end up panning out between two males). She is secretly writing the perfect male and female romance, as it would occur if the sexes were able to see past each other's genitals!
In the end, I honestly believe slash is adorable (something a lot of you know I wouldn't have been caught dead saying a year ago) because when one comes to understand the reasoning behind all of it, it is blatantly obvious that it's all about loving unconditionally and without all of the messy confusion the opposite sexes cause each other. When girls imagine two boys falling in love, they feel for a moment as if someday they might be loved unconditionally too, and not just for their breasts or for their sexual performance or for their ability to birth children and clean a man's house.
As I grew older I denounced slash but have recently let go of my frustration with it, and now I am interested in exploring slash pairings more realistically (as explorations of gay characters or characters who just fall for same sex friends or just PEOPLE who fall for other PEOPLE and happen to be of the same sex, etc.). But even those of us more mature fans I'm sure are guilty of following one or all of the major slash trends, and may still do so whether we'd like to admit it or not. We read fic and look at fanart because it feels good, even if we're reading a horror or a supernatural thriller or a romance, and in the end all of these streams flow together.
I still have to talk about how character role models and slash translate to fan practices like cosplay, but once again I've stayed up far too late writing about fandom mentality and HARHAR DIDN'T DO MY HOMEWORK TODAY so I better move my ass and get on that. But thanks for reading, all of you who stuck it to the end! And I'll have more for you soon.
Peace, love (and big, wet & sloppy boy/boy kisses!)
~ Pook
( Part One - The Power of Character)
(EDIT) Alright, another thought occurred to me. You know how every male's fantasy girl is Princess Leia from the original Star Wars trilogy? WHY DO YOU SUPPOSE THAT IS? Because Leia gets down and dirty and doesn't take shit from the guys, and is 'one of the guys' while at the same time being a very feminine woman- and a princess at that! God I love her. She is also a love interest but one that does not fall victim to the shallow love interest role because she is directly tied to the adventure plot; without her the backstory would make no sense. PLUS she is revealed to be the sibling of the boy who we originally thought she'd be the love interest for, and while nurturing the boys like a mother, also stands beside them as a fellow comrade WITH FLAWS and she too goes through character evolutions over the arc of the plot. HA!
Guys will argue that they like her because of that sexy bikini but Carrie Fisher is not an extremely attractive woman. I think she's beautiful but she's not the typical definition of 'sexy'. Let's put it this way, she isn't Megan Fox. But while Megan Fox plays HORRIBLE characters that are hot, Carrie Fisher played a pretty gal who was FUCKING KICKASS and now EVERY NERDY MALE IN THE WORLD worships Leia as their 'ideal' woman and HYSTERICALLY they have NO IDEA that the reason is because she is 'a man' in a bikini. I call her a man in a bikini because men cannot comprehend that what they really want in a woman is the very same thing they want in man. Dear Lord all men are so gay and they just have no clue. (But don't mistake me. All women are lesbians too! Why do you think girls love dressing their favorite boy characters in drag so much?)
Okay sorry, I'll stop ranting but this topic just keeps expanding in my brain. Sex is so silly. 8|
As I was thinking about the different male characters I've grown so attached to over the years, I again had a good chuckle over the fact that I've also 'slashed' so many of them. Why? Why do so many female fans slash boys? (I mention female because I do believe slashing males is a predominantly female practice, only because from my observation males tend to be a bit more homophobic concerning their own gender.) Males do it too, just not as rampantly.
Well, I am not a male, so I can't really speak for the reasons males do or do not slash. But I just so happen to be female, and can talk a bit about why I personally have slashed characters, and why I think other girls (and, perhaps people in general) do it too. Again, I'll be using personal examples that should be easy enough for you to supplant with your own.
Let me take a trip down memory lane, to the very first pair of boys I ever slashed.
Yuugi Mutou and 'Yami no Yuugi' from Yu-Gi-Oh!.
(Image chosen because I daresay it has become the most popular Puzzleshipping image available to North American fans, and I have no idea how or why this came to be true.)
It's funny because when I first fell in love with the series, I fell in love with Yuugi myself and wrote fanfiction in which we dated and had adventures together (but never kissed!). I still have a lot of this fiction in old notebooks I've kept and it's now obvious to me that I never really saw Yuugi as more than a personal hero and 'friend', but when you're 13 and you like a boy character you tend to assume it has to be a crush. Remember that I'd never had a platonic (or romantic for that matter) relationship with a boy then. My pseudo-crush on Yuugi went on for a few months, until I made a new friend over the series who had the internet (I didn't). She let me stay up late on her computer reading fanfiction, and I read all kinds of Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfiction. Mostly it was gen fiction because at that time I had no idea what shipping was! I was also petrified of romantic feelings and was an incredibly shy and sheltered Christian girl. But of course, I eventually stumbled upon ship!fic (I think the first was Yuugi/ Mai, which I wrinkled my nose at) and a few fics later I probably happened upon Yuugi/ Yami. (I know Yami is an incorrect name for the spirit, but he has so many false names anyway and honestly, it's the first name I knew him by and it's the easiest to use. SO SORRY IF IT MAKES YOU THINK OF YAMS!)
At first I may have thought it was gross, I honestly can't remember. But I do remember thinking about the idea of Yuugi and Yami being 'together' one day as I got off the bus for school. I was surprised to find that I thought it was kind of cute. "But why?" I had to wonder. After all, wasn't it wrong for two boys to be together?
After that day, I have no memories concerning the ship except for, well, shipping it. I don't really know what made me decide it was okay. Probably the same thing that made me decide that liking and watching Yu-Gi-Oh! itself was okay. When I first got into the series I had a serious moral dilemma as a Christian child. I prayed to God to forgive me for watching such an evil show and apologized profusely but pleaded that I just couldn't help it, it made me so happy... I couldn't stop watching it. So I didn't. Even though my parents didn't like it, they didn't really know much about it and they didn't watch the shows I watched, so they couldn't do much but 'tsk!' when they saw my Yu-Gi-Oh! merchandise.
I don't really know how or why, but Puzzleshipping (the affectionate name given to the Yuugi/ Yami no Yuugi ship) was the first 'gay' or male/ male couple I ever accepted, and although it didn't seem so at the time, that was a big deal. If I never had this experience as a 13 year old, I may have grown older still harboring the conservative Christian belief that 'being gay is nay okay' and it may have hardened in my mind as I let go of my childish wonder, curiosity and acceptance. If I never met the friends I met because of Yu-Gi-Oh! (and later anime) I could have easily turned out very differently. I could have made different friends who were less open-minded, whom I would have tried to change myself for and may never have gone through the spiritual revolution I have because of... yes, dare I say it? Fandom. And shipping.
The whole proposition sounds laughable, I know, but it's true. I credit fandom as the spark and continual inspiration for the many changes I've gone through as a character over the years. And were it not fandom, it could have been something else. But for me, it wasn't something else... it was doodling boys kissing in my notebooks and writing about how much they're 'meant 2 be'... and it was/ is that way for a lot of other people too.
But this brings us back to the question, why boys? And why slash? Why do girls become so infatuated with the idea of male/ male infatuation?
Well, there are a lot of reasons. They're different for every person who likes slash. But here are some common themes I believe to be true for most slashers. I'll also get to some more specifically personal reasons later.
Have you noticed that many of the most popular ships seem to be from incredibly popular adventure series? I mean to make the point that the most ragingly fawned over slash ships usually aren't from romance series. They're from gen series, and often series in which the male protagonists have a 'hinted' female romance partner, and are not canonically gay. So why the male/male ship? Why do so many girls prefer to slash boys in place of shipping one of the boys with the female that is obviously 'supposed' to be the love interest?
The nature of gen series (or any genre series save romance) is that they do not focus on a romance, and are usually plot-driven. Or, if you prefer, the plot isn't a romantic plot. It's usually an adventure plot. And... the main character is usually a boy. We could discuss the 'problems' with this truth, but that's not the point I'm tackling right now. It's also important to note that although people slash everything (from Looney Tunes characters to live-action actors), I believe the practice is most common among people who like anime. Anime fans seem to be the most outspoken about slash, anyway. I don't have any divine wisdom on why that is, but I can say that because of this, a lot of the most popular slash couples are from the most popular anime series, which are ironically made for boys. I'm talking about Shounen. Shounen series are traditionally targeted towards young males, but of course are enjoyed by people of all ages and gender.
The problem with Shounen is that, while often creating interesting female characters, it almost always lacks the formation of a significant bond with the male protagonist and the awesome female character. Another problem is that many Shounen series do severely lack awesome female characters.
But again, even the series that have great females do not usually emphasize the male and female friendship. Instead the female is almost always a love interest for the male. Ironically, the writers then spend much less time and effort trying to convince you that the male and female are compatible. The audience is meant to assume that the two are 'meant 2 be' and more focus and attention is given to developing the bonds between the male protagonist and his best male friend, comrade, or rival. The plot is often directly tied to a serious dilemma that causes the male protagonist and his friend/ rival strife, and often a rift is formed in the relationship between the two. This rift is often either caused because of or for the purpose of the strife, and the plot exists to solve the dilemma keeping the two boys separated (physically or emotionally) or at odds with each other.
NO SUCH PLOT DEVICE IS GIVEN TO THE MALE FEMALE RELATIONSHIP. Instead, the female is usually a comforter in this triad of characters... consoling one or both boys, pushing them to make amends. Sometimes both boys are supposedly in 'love' with this female character, and in the end of the story she is a reward to one of them for reconciling their differences. Instead of outstanding as an interesting character in relation to the plot, the female remains isolated from the action and yet stands on a pedestal, carrying a wisdom neither of the boys seem to have. She is both hallow and more mature than the boys, often emanating motherly qualities. (And let's face it, mothers are uninteresting when you're a kid and you'd rather watch two boys knock each other's brains out, than see the goody-goody girl rationalize to them why 'fighting is bad mmk' and so the 'girl' scenes are kept to a strict minimum.) All of this can sometimes make the female an intriguing character but ultimately causes a partition between her and the males because she is on a higher step than they are. She is not involved in the resolution of the story because the boys are going through changes that the female has already solved for herself. This causes the gap between the sexes to multiply two-fold. Not only are the boys boys and the girls girls, the girls and boys are emotionally functioning on two different planes for most of if not all of the story.
Why do writers do this- continually cast males and females into the same stereotypical roles? Again, there are many reasons, I'm sure not all of which are conscious.
But one reason is that traditionally, Boys Like Girls, so in a series about a male protagonist, it is assumed the boy should have a girl to like. It is also a fact that boys fight less with girls. Shounen series are often about elaborate action-based adventures, and so the antagonist to the hero character (male protagonist) is almost always cast as a fellow male, because... 'that's just how things work'. Boys fight boys. Boys fall for girls. (See also: REASONS WHY MARRIAGES FAIL~!)
There is a very heavy disconnect in society between boys and girls. Boys pine after girls because they have sexual desires often ruffled by the female physique, but most boys do not grow up with very close female friends. As such, many boys do not want or understand female friends. They want female romances. And they expect these romances to be different than their friendships with fellow men. Conversely, females want the exact opposite from men. They want boys to be their friends, because females believe that they are meant to fall in love with a man whom they can share their most innermost desires with, that they cannot share with their female friends. Both want nothing but to be close to each other, but always assume the wrong ways in which to become closer. In the end, this sets the genders apart because they both misunderstand each other's aims and desires, and in frustration decide to call the whole thing off. This same misunderstanding is repeated throughout media, because the people creating media are obviously themselves partakers and now perpetrators of this divide between the sexes.
It is interesting to note that one way fandom deals with this divide is through gender-swap fiction and art, but that's another matter.
Because of the age-old tales about boys and girls and their relations with each other, it is very rare that series buck the gender roles and cast the characters differently. Sure, we still get interesting and well-constructed characters... and I do mean to include males and females in that statement. The problem is, I don't think we get many interesting or well-constructed male and female character dynamics.
As I mentioned above the story will often surround the two males, be they best friends or rivals, or even rivals that become best friends... and the female will remain a motivator or comforter. She is given much less screen time and the boys are thrown all of the interesting action and story developments. The girl may even be included in the backstory, but the backstory will not usually depend upon the female whilst if one were to remove one of the males from the backstory, it would not make any sense or would possibly not even exist, because the story is all about the males and their relationship, and the female is simply a tagline.
Also as I mentioned above, because boys generally fight each other more than girls, it is very important to emphasize their fights and 'make-ups' so that the audience understands that the boys were 'just being boys' or that their issues have been resolved, and the fights make their relationship stronger. The boys go through many of these fights over the course of the series. Whilst the boys may bicker with the girls, they will almost never truly fight with them the same way they fight each other. So while the boys are becoming bestest buds, the boy and girl are often annoyed with each other over petty matters and their problems with each other are never addressed because they are unwilling to actually fight with each other or truly open up to each other. The reason the boys are willing to do this with each other is because they learned from an early age that they were similar to other males and could eventually come to understandings with fellow boys. At the ages they appear in Shounen series, boys have usually never had much experience with girls, and girls are 'different' and so the boys shy away from them but at the same time crave to be closer to them... but the boy mind craves this closeness not in comraderie like it should, and rather in physical intimacy which is precisely what is usually missing from their relationships with fellow bros. I'm sure this all sounds very confusing but hopefully you're still following me.
So it is that in most gen series, the best friends are boys and a lot of development is put into their relationship so that the audience can see their friendship grow. The female is cast as a love interest, and less development is put into her relationship with the males because She Is Pretty and He Wants Her and the rest can be assumed, and the writers don't really care to expand upon the friendship because (obviously) that plot strand is very boring... but also seen as necessary, because you just can't have an adventure without 'love'.
Another thing to note is the reason that female love interests are often heavily hinted at but never 'confirmed' is the writers do not want to alienate any potential viewers, and again, since the target audience for these series is young males, it is assumed that most young males do not want to watch as many romantic developments as they would like to watch dynamic action and heavy boy character drama. If a lot of time were spent developing a romance, a lot of writers believe they would lose some of their viewers. What they fail to consider is the fact that they may also gain a significant amount of new viewers for a new sub-plot. But, it's also important to consider the fact that a romance in any form might be distracting and extremely uninteresting compared to the main story plot or premise of the series anyway, predominantly male audience or not.
I would like to make a side note here and say that there are also a lot of female-targeted series (in anime and manga they would be called Shoujo) that do focus on the female and male relationship, but still cast the characters in the shallow roles of romantic objects rather than close friends and sequentially lovers. WHY?! Because the people writing these series do not realize that they completely misunderstand the sexes- opposite and ironically their own. The females writing these series are the females that pine for a male partner but do not know how to befriend a male and view boys as objects of affection just as boys view girls as objects of desire. I said that females usually want to be a boy's friend instead of their lover, which is true, but even girls who want this misinterpret their feelings or are fooled by society's standards for love, and think that a man is a potential husband, not a potential best friend. A boy is not someone they can go to the movies with (after all, boys like different movies than girls), not someone they can 'bitch' at (bitching is reserved for fellow bitches, you see), and not someone they can take shopping or doing anything they like as a girl, because 'boys just like different things than girls' which isn't true but society makes people believe that it is so. Society makes people believe that men and women cannot 'be friends', but all over the world that is all the sexes want to be. They just don't realize how they can be, or even that they can be at all.
PHEW. That was a mouthful.
All of this complicated gender confusion basically fuels the fact that females and males are both mis-represented in media, but it just so happens that there are more males writing and more males being created, and thus more males are breaking the gender barrier than females.
So females, who want to see males as potential friends, glob onto the male friendships in media. And either because they just like love in general or because they see boys and 'insta-crush', they see their favorite male friendships as 'more'.
And honestly, it is not that hard to make such assumptions.
Not only does the development of the story support stronger relationships between men than between men and women... the imagery for series media is absolutely hilariously painfully exclusionary of females; even when the females are as much 'main' characters as the secondary males.
The boys for these series are all shown doing much more interesting things with each other than they are with the girls, because they are better friends and so it's easy for the people making art for the series to draw them, while it is difficult to think of what they can have the boys and girls doing together... because the boys and girls really don't know each other all that well. What would they be doing together besides pining for sexual affection or wondering awkwardly what to talk about?
Because the series is on my mind, and because it is outrageously popular, I'll be referencing Kingdom Hearts as an example.
Look at the cover image above. I know we can all admit that Riku and Sora are 'just friends' and that Sora supposedly has a crush on Kairi... but then why the hell did the artists encase Sora and Riku in a heart together in the background? A romantic heart, the symbol that adorns Valentine's boxes and candies all over the world! Sure it's the symbol of the series and represents their memories together and yatta yatta- I really don't care. It's still hilarious because it's still a romantic heart and I have to assume the artists either did this on purpose as a buck to the preposterousness of Kairi's role or they're just laughably oblivious. (The only way they could have made this image more hintingly gay is to draw Sora and Riku actually facing each other, and frankly I'm surprised they didn't. I suppose they just wanted to emphasize the fact that Sora and Riku's love affair is hindered by their separation from each other for the majority of the game.)
I'm sure most of you reading have played the games or are at least somewhat familiar with them, but for those of you who aren't I won't spoil too much. But there's a point in the second game in which Sora is reunited with his two friends after over a year of separation. The two friends are his best friend Riku and his supposed crush Kairi. The trio grew up on an island playing together, and while Riku and Sora were rivals of sorts (but also bro-biffles), Sora and Kairi definitely crushed on each other. In the the first game Riku runs off, succumbing to his dark desires and at one point (I hope I'm remembering correctly, I haven't played the first game in so long) kidnaps Kairi and tries to turn her into a Heartless. (I could spend time explaining Heartless to those of you out of the loop, but it really is as literal as it sounds... this is Disney after all.) In order to save Kairi, Sora becomes a heartless himself, and this creates the plot for the second game in which alternate identities are born from people who at some point or another, become Heartless as Sora, Kairi and Riku have all done (because Riku is a fucker).
Back to the second game, because of Riku's folly the trio of friends (and their other buddies like Donald and Goofy, etc. but that's slightly unimportant to my current discussion) are thrown through a series of time warps and other such nonsense but the IMPORTANT thing to note is they are separated from each other. The player spends the entire second game looking (as Sora) for friends Kairi and Riku. Upon reuniting with said friends, Sora is glomped by Kairi. Sora hugs Kairi back, but does not do so as enthusiastically as one would assume he might for having such a notable 'crush' on her.
Riku is off to the side, wearing the skin of another man because KINGDOM HEARTS IS ON DRUGS but anyway. Riku is ashamed for his mistakes and doesn't even want Sora to recognize him through his disguise. Kairi outs him though and Sora...
DROPS TO HIS KNEES AND SOBS.
(You may watch said scene here if you so wish.)
In reality this excess of emotion over Riku on Sora's part is just because they are better friends than he and Kairi, who has fallen victim the the male and female dynamic I explained earlier in this entry. Still, it is not that hard to think of Sora and Riku as more than best friends because of this, simply because the female love interest is so boring. I apologize to Kairi fans, and to be fair I think Riku is pretty boring too... but he is certainly more interesting than Kairi, at least in relation to Sora, because his relationship with Sora is much stronger and more developed. (Although I do commend Kingdom Hearts for strengthening Kairi's role for the second game and further in later installments.)
In the end, I feel no shame for shipping Sora and Riku because the fact of the matter is they are far more interesting together than Sora and Kairi are. Sora and Riku have banter and cheekiness and apparently SORA SOBS IN RIKU'S ABSENCE (significant for a boy who is so upbeat and optimistic) and the two are basically the very cute, Disney-Square version of the BROMANCE all females desire to have with people, specifically boys whom they always feel excluded from. Much like Kairi! If you watch the scene I linked to, you'll see that Kairi is very pointedly left out of the Sora Riku hug. All three are 'equally' friends, and yet Sora and Kairi hug... Sora and Riku hug... But Kairi and Riku do not hug... and the three DO NOT hug together.
Furthermore, Goofy and Donald do not hug, and I am very upset by this fact. But I don't think most people watching this scene care about Goofy and Donald the way that I do. [/Disney weaboo]
I'm just trying to say that although Kairi may be an alright girl on her own, in the scheme of things she isn't as important as Sora and Riku and definitely not as notable and let's just face the facts... she doesn't have sexy Riku hair. Riku has sexy Riku hair, even if he doesn't say much... and Sora is obviously more effected by Riku emotionally than he is by Kairi, despite earlier in-game having a romantic fantasy over her. (A very shallow boy-like one though, in which they are dancing and doing nothing significantly relationship-building and it would be so easy to argue that Sora only had that fantasy because he simply doesn't know any better about girls or his feelings for Kairi- or Riku for that matter.)
So the question is not "Why boys?", and is rather why NOT the boys?
They are so much more compatible. (Because love does not spring from common interests or romantic fantasies; rather true love springs from shared experience and emotional intimacy. Something it is very rare to see boys and girls genuinely sharing on screen, but is overly-abundant between males on screen.)
That example concludes my reasoning for what I believe is the most obvious motivator behind slash. But as I mentioned earlier, there are scores of other motivators.
I think one of the sweetest ways to look into the motivation behind slash is to consider the fact that it also occurs simply because people (but mostly girls) want to reassure themselves that love is not about appearances or conditions (gender) and is rather about emotion and strong, open relationships.
Of course, there are the slash fans that simply mash the two prettiest male characters in a series together and call it good, but often the girls who do this have simply caught the bug after initially falling in love with a very deep male bond. This happened to me after I accepted Puzzleshipping. My friends and I would ship boys just because they were boys and just because they were cute, but I think we only did that because we were trying to replicate the feelings we got from the couple that started it all and we just didn't understand why slash and shipping appealed to us; only that it did.
I believe this confusion is what feeds the other slash trend, in which girls develop a crush on one of the boy characters and identify with another of the male characters, and so they ship the two males, but when they write or draw the males together it ends up sounding an awful lot like every heterosexual female's Mary-Sue fic. The girl takes the boy they see as a relatable character and/ or 'role model' and the boy they see as a fictional romantic interest and 'marry' the two ideals, if you will.
It becomes a fantastic ideal relationship they'd love to see them self in one day. The added plus of writing about males being in love with each other, even when one of those males is emulating female characteristics, is that the female author then feels safe exploring love because she is writing about a relationship in which there is no female 'awkwardness' or exclusion. There is no gender barrier keeping the two lovers from connecting openly. In other words, the author does not feel rejected for being female, because she is not writing about a male and female romance (even though really, she is, because whatever she's writing it's really not the way a romance would end up panning out between two males). She is secretly writing the perfect male and female romance, as it would occur if the sexes were able to see past each other's genitals!
In the end, I honestly believe slash is adorable (something a lot of you know I wouldn't have been caught dead saying a year ago) because when one comes to understand the reasoning behind all of it, it is blatantly obvious that it's all about loving unconditionally and without all of the messy confusion the opposite sexes cause each other. When girls imagine two boys falling in love, they feel for a moment as if someday they might be loved unconditionally too, and not just for their breasts or for their sexual performance or for their ability to birth children and clean a man's house.
As I grew older I denounced slash but have recently let go of my frustration with it, and now I am interested in exploring slash pairings more realistically (as explorations of gay characters or characters who just fall for same sex friends or just PEOPLE who fall for other PEOPLE and happen to be of the same sex, etc.). But even those of us more mature fans I'm sure are guilty of following one or all of the major slash trends, and may still do so whether we'd like to admit it or not. We read fic and look at fanart because it feels good, even if we're reading a horror or a supernatural thriller or a romance, and in the end all of these streams flow together.
I still have to talk about how character role models and slash translate to fan practices like cosplay, but once again I've stayed up far too late writing about fandom mentality and HARHAR DIDN'T DO MY HOMEWORK TODAY so I better move my ass and get on that. But thanks for reading, all of you who stuck it to the end! And I'll have more for you soon.
Peace, love (and big, wet & sloppy boy/boy kisses!)
~ Pook
( Part One - The Power of Character)
(EDIT) Alright, another thought occurred to me. You know how every male's fantasy girl is Princess Leia from the original Star Wars trilogy? WHY DO YOU SUPPOSE THAT IS? Because Leia gets down and dirty and doesn't take shit from the guys, and is 'one of the guys' while at the same time being a very feminine woman- and a princess at that! God I love her. She is also a love interest but one that does not fall victim to the shallow love interest role because she is directly tied to the adventure plot; without her the backstory would make no sense. PLUS she is revealed to be the sibling of the boy who we originally thought she'd be the love interest for, and while nurturing the boys like a mother, also stands beside them as a fellow comrade WITH FLAWS and she too goes through character evolutions over the arc of the plot. HA!
Guys will argue that they like her because of that sexy bikini but Carrie Fisher is not an extremely attractive woman. I think she's beautiful but she's not the typical definition of 'sexy'. Let's put it this way, she isn't Megan Fox. But while Megan Fox plays HORRIBLE characters that are hot, Carrie Fisher played a pretty gal who was FUCKING KICKASS and now EVERY NERDY MALE IN THE WORLD worships Leia as their 'ideal' woman and HYSTERICALLY they have NO IDEA that the reason is because she is 'a man' in a bikini. I call her a man in a bikini because men cannot comprehend that what they really want in a woman is the very same thing they want in man. Dear Lord all men are so gay and they just have no clue. (But don't mistake me. All women are lesbians too! Why do you think girls love dressing their favorite boy characters in drag so much?)
Okay sorry, I'll stop ranting but this topic just keeps expanding in my brain. Sex is so silly. 8|