On slash and women
Just a few notes as I get my head around some stylistic issues that have been plaguing me of late. I even wonder if they haven't been weighing me down in my own attempts to write, and may be part of the block. It's all in my perception of what makes good slash, you see. Not good writing as such, that's another topic, but good slash.
I've seen many statements and conversations contemplating why slash is written cycling through the years. I first read theories about it when I was a denizen of ASCEML, and Henry Jenkins was being cited textual poaching all over the shop. Since then there have been a lot of studies and people have devoted a lot of effort into describing and analysing the phenomenon. I'd guess most slashers will get into a conversation about it at least once or more in their online interactions. It's bound to come up on my flist at least once a month, I know that.
My own opinions on it have fluctuated over the years. I've come to realise that women's real interests, on the whole, aren't catered for in society (quite obviously), and if they were then this prolific and rich and dynamic subculture would be mainstream, and loving it. Imagine, for instance, if in my RL world of magazine publishing, the 'women's interest' category didn't limit itself to fashion, makeup, recipes, diets, cosmetic surgery, het romance, het sex tips, babies, celebrity gossip and the bowel movements of the Royals. Imagine it included, as a matter of course, intelligent discussion on wide-ranging topics, illuminating explorations on interactions between people, and of course, sexuality in all its forms. I'd buy that magazine, wouldn't you? Hell yes. And I wish I had the funds to take that idea further, btw. Publishing a quarterly mag like that would be... exhilarating. But I digress.
I've seen some men be startled, bewildered and dismissive of women writing slash. The reaction from some gay men, even ones that read and write slash themselves, can be quite aggressive. There's many a grievance about unrealistic sex, unrealistic male interaction, insertion of feminine characteristics into male characters, etc. For quite some time I took those arguments to heart, and was conscious of ways in which I'd fallen into those 'traps', and took pains to avoid them.
I've had a rethink, though. Women write for themselves, and they write what they want to read. If that means that gay men as potential readers are not catered for, then that's unavoidable. That's not the (only?) target audience, is it? Women are writing for themselves. If it doesn't meet the criteria that some men want, then surely there's other stories they can read by men that will fill that need. There's no need to criticise what women are writing for themselves, or to try to change what women include in their stories. If women want to idealise the characters in their stories, then more power, I say. And if they don't, then that's good, too.
It's gotten to the point for me that when I'm reading another author's story, I'll pick up on the elements that wouldn't fit into a real gay reality, and I'll privately diss it to myself. I'll scoff, and think 'a woman wrote this'. Now, I'm going to read those same stories and nod my head, and think 'this is what women like to read'. And that will make me happy, and I'll enjoy those stories more.
I might even enjoy writing them more, too.