my thoughts on yaoi

[anitabuchan]

I wish I had posted sooner about this, but I was struggling to know what to say (and also my dissertation's due in a week, so, panic). But then sparkindarkness posted this wonderful post, and I wanted to signal boost. And now I've ended up rambling on myself, on much the same topics he did. Only he said it all much better, so if you're going to read one of these posts, read his.

I've read elsewhere that the kyriarchy makes this debate complicated. I don't agree. I think this debate is very simple. There is a group of people, oppressed by society, who complained about being hurt and disrespected. There is another group of people who have been doing the hurting and the disrespecting. This second group of people, in response to these complaints, have used every derailing tactic they could get their hands on to avoid discussing the fact that some of them have been guilty of hurting people.

Some of the most common derailing tactics I've seen:

1. They want us to stop writing slash! (Um, no. The vast majority are not saying that. Stop using straw men.)

2. They didn't mention us lesbians/bisexuals! (No. That's because, and I say this as a lesbian, our sexuality is not relevent. We are not gay men, we do not have super secret knowledge of how to write gay men, and while we may be more understanding of certain issues that straight women, we are still very capable of hurting gay men with our writing. The endless posts on how lesbians/bisexuals/queer women are being ignored are just derailing from the real issue - because LBQ women are just as reluctant to face their privilege as everyone else.)

3. It's just fiction! (And fiction can hurt people. Fiction has a real world impact. It also ignores that it isn't just fiction - that there (or it sometimes feels to me like there is) an entire community built on the objectification of gay men. You want real world impacts? What about women going up to gay men in the street or in a bar, and asking them to kiss, or about their sex lives? Because that happens. What about all the straight women trying to get into gay bars, in order to ogle the men inside as if it were some kind of zoo? Because that happens too. Also affecting lesbians, because at many gay clubs bouncers are so wary of letting any women in. The 'it's just fiction' debate is obviously one that has been had many times before, in many different contexts, and I'm not going to try summing up all the arguments that have been made. All I will say is: yes, it does matter.)

4. Slashers have no responsibility to the LBGTQ community! (I saw this on linkspam this morning, and my immediate response was something along the lines of 'fuck you'. Here's an idea: if you're using gay people as puppets for your own gratification, then perhaps you could take a teeny moment out of the squeeing to, I don't know, think about someone other than yourself? Think about how your entertainment may be affecting an already oppressed people? You're right, you have no responsibility to do so. But not doing so makes you, IMHO, a very selfish person.)

5. Actual gay men have nothing to do with slash! (I would just like to quote sparkindarkness here: this is just pure silencing. It’s also grossly disrespectful. This is a genre about us. Not just some of the time, not just occasionally. M/m fiction and m/m slash is all about gay or bisexual men. To say it is a female space or that we have no place to comment or criticise is not just arrogant - it’s dehumanising. This really does emphasise how degraded gay men are to some of these commenters - gay men are presented as objects. We are characters, we can be used and claimed and appropriated - but real gay men are not considered or even welcome to many of those commenting.)

6. Men have oppressed women! (Yeah. And now some women are hurting gay men. This is the kyriarchy, people: just because, at some times, a group has privilege over you, does not mean that you will never have privilege over them. In this debate, women are the oppressing group.)

If you wish for examples, head over to linkspam: a community supporting derailings since, oh, the start of a debate in which the mods were the ones with privilege?

I could go on, but those are the main points I've seen raised. I think I've come across as angrier that I meant, but - I am angry over this. The example above, women asking a gay couple to kiss for them? That happened to a friend of mine. They wanted he and his boyfriend to kiss, so that they could take a picture. Because they thought it would be hot. And as a lesbian, I'm fairly used to the response of straight men responding in a sexual way to finding out my orientation. I don't think it's a sign of progress that that now happens to gay men as well.

Gay men are not objects, or puppets, or here for women to use, and hurt, and appropriate in search of gratification. They're people, and therefore deserve to be treated with respect. That has nothing to do with writing, or the responsibilities of an author, or the slash community. It has to do with being a decent human being.

I think the original complaints have pretty much been lost by now, buried under a pile of 'what about the lesbians!' and 'we've been oppressed too!' and 'gay men keep out!'. In other words, it's been a very successful derailing. I hope all those involved feel proud.


I thought writing this might help me feel less angry. It hasn't really worked.

Comments

[foggynite.livejournal.com]

Thank you for writing this! You've articulated some points that have been upsetting me for a while. I don't think the entire slash community, as diverse as it is, is at fault for all of the above, but there are threads that can make me uncomfortable in any forum.

Part of the reason I stepped away from my anthropology work on slash/yaoi was because of the attitude of some people when I was doing field work. You talk to enough people who say they like "controlling" men in the stories and putting them in "taboo" situations and having "power" over them, and my optimistic little heart took a beating. It was hard to write about those responses and then go watch the Vagina Monologues and not feel emotional parallels. I still hope they were a small percent of the slash community.

From my own experience, it saddens me when a "safe space" for GLBT community members is subjected to what some people consider "harmless" sexual tourism/voyeurism. A dance club in DC is not Spring Break in Cancun. A GLBT bookstore is a place where people go to buy books, not perform sex acts for the public. Walking up to two guys because they're gay and asking them to make out for a picture is, IMO, like walking up to a person of color and asking them to "act their race" for a pic. Would someone do that in this day and age without it exploding in their face? Hell no.

Yes, slash can been interpreted as heightening the visibility of the GLBT community. Does it impact the community through the media and people's personal behaviors? Yes, I think it does. Is it an accurate representation? Not so much. But I think everyone has a responsibility to be decent human beings, for themselves and each other.

[anitabuchan.livejournal.com]

A big yes to all of that :). And I wish I felt surprised about what you say in your second paragraph, but right now I think my faith in humanity is a little dented, and it's very easy to believe. I'm sure (I hope, anyway) that many just never think about it in those terms - never pause to consider the impact it might have on gay men - but what really angers me is, when the issues are pointed out to them, they refuse to listen.

I think your last point needs to be repeated over and over. I keep seeing people bringing up the issue of whether authors have responsibility towards those they write about - as if authors are in some way special, and no longer required to think of the feelings of others - which, I believe, is a requirement if you want to consider yourself a good person.

[foggynite.livejournal.com]

I find it an interesting point that most of the women who spoke in terms of power and control, who found it appealing to "make" two canonically straight characters "act gay," were older -- early 40s and beyond -- whereas the younger women I interviewed rarely touched on it beyond the shock value of two guys being romantically involved. Granted, the interviews were at slash and yaoi conventions, so the sample was self-selective, but the responses were systemically disparate enough to make me pause. From a personal view, I took the two perspectives to be a product of age -- Second wave feminism vs. the new generation of "I'm not a feminist, but..." because all the women I interviewed were very aware of feminist issues and gender politics. So I think having them speak so enthusiastically on women's issues and then act so callous/purposefully oppressing toward the issues of gay men just -- saddened me. A lot. I had planned to turn my thesis into a book or an article and do so much more with it, but by the end I was very disillusioned and that was only three years ago.

Author responsibility -- Yes, exactly. Like, there's a difference between exploring an issue to see what it says about society and exploiting an issue gratuitously for personal gain. It's up to the author first to draw that line, not a publisher or the reader. It's not just author responsibility, it's personal responsibility.

[anitabuchan.livejournal.com]

That is very interesting. I can't help but wonder what subconcious motivation is behind that - the desire to exert power and control by 'making' someone 'act gay' seems, to me, to involve quite a negative attitudes towards gay acts - exercising power by forcing someone to do something percieved as demeaning or degrading. Then I suppose a possible reason for the age split is that women aged 40+ would have probably grown up and been socialised in a much more homophobic society, and still have some hangover from that (although I always tend to assume that older slashers are going to be more open-minded, not less). Or maybe I'm being uncharitable. At the moment I seem to be seeing everything in the worst possible light.

Anyway. It's a pity you weren't able to turn it into a book or article, but I don't blame you for becoming disillusioned. This debate's been going for, I don't know, two weeks? And I'm already exhausted.

[foggynite.livejournal.com]

I think it's those negative undertones that made me uncomfortable -- Their reasons were couched in terms of female empowerment, but were at the expense of male dignity and respect. I suppose I expected older slashers to be more open-minded as well. Not to say that all older slashers aren't -- This selection might have been an anomaly. You can never tell when people volunteer to be interviewed; often they have a message or worldview they want to communicate to a wider audience.

I've caught snippets of the debate in other people's journals, but admit that I stuck my head in the sand going "lalalacan'thearyou!" From the sound of it, I'm glad I did (train wrecks never look pretty in slow motion...)

If it helps, I have a fuzzy black kitty buzzing in my ear and demanding attention. Cats make everything better!

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Thank you, it's a relief to share the frustration

[anitabuchan.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome!

[kennsea.livejournal.com]

Great post. I have been seething for a while, and it's good to not feel so alone!

[anitabuchan.livejournal.com]

Thank you. And no, you are definitely not alone - seething is quite a good word to describe how I've felt the past week :).

[http://users.livejournal.com/tesserae_/]

Here via sparkindarkness's journal, and I just wanted to say to this: What about women going up to gay men in the street or in a bar, and asking them to kiss, or about their sex lives? Because that happens

Really? Seriously? This happens? Wtf, people? What kind of a sense of entitlement leads to that kind of behavior? That is appalling... Watching porn is one thing - that's what it's for - but I... can't even wrap my mind around this, esp. against the context of freaking decades of effort in society and the courts to force straight men to learn that women's bodies are not playgrounds or playthings for men. It's not progress to declare that turnabout is fair play, as you say.

::goes off to boggle quietly::

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

It's happened to me in pride parades and gay bars. Gah, I've actually had some gay bars (and certainly gay nights) feel like alien spaces because there were so many women playing tourist, sight seer and generally drooling that it was damned uncomfortable. And in the end, there's not much the management can do. It doesn't happen often but now and then you'll get a few - or a party in there to look at the pretty gays.

[anitabuchan.livejournal.com]

Yep! I'm almost used to comments such as 'that's hot' or 'can I watch?' when meeting straight men with a girlfriend, but even so I was shocked when a gay friend told me about this. Especially since they asked him for a photo, which just added an extra layer of ick. The main gay bar in Glasgow can be almost impossible for lesbians and other queer women to get into, because the management has responded to the problem of parties of straight women coming in by keeping out almost all women. And it's just...gay bars are supposed to be our space, but straight women coming in takes that away. (I'm in no way meaning to demonise straight women, because I know this is a minority. Just one that pisses me off very much.)

[velvetgunpowder.livejournal.com]

Woot woot! Great post!

[anitabuchan.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :)