a space for continuing today’s convo…
February 26th, 2008 by Lorettahey…. so i’m certain (and hope) people will feel free to talk about whatever they please here – including questions raised at the end about the commercial aspect of porn, and the fine line between accepted forms of pornography and slash… etc. etc.
but i have a few questions that were sparked by today’s conversation that i guess have been simmering under the surface for some time that i’d like to spew here – and i’d love to hear your thoghts.
first, to build on the point of anthropological representation that bizzy brought up… I know that more frequently today throughout the field of anthropology, scholars are struggling with the “right”/”best” process of representing the Other to minimalize objectification/exotification/etc. – to the point that few scholars have taken the extreme stance that they cannot/should not be allowed to produce works about anyone outside of the group that the anthropologist identifies with… (I can’t remember for the life of me which theorists argue which points but both Jay Ruby (ch 8!) and Terence Turner add compelling insight to the discourse surrounding representation.) ANYWAY – applying this crucial debate to fan productions and slash has raised a series of interesting questions for me:
- do slashers (specifically heterosexual women) even have the right to create this politically charged, self-serving portrayal of homosexuality/homoeroticism (even when readers understand that it is taking place in a fictional realm) when they themselves do not identify with the identities being objectified?
- if so, then do slashers need to be actively engaging in the political discourse surrounding their practices instead of maybe shying away from them by keeping the mass media and public away?
- do slashers have a political/social responsibility to their queer subject matter? (this reminds me of some of the discussion we had when considering the subversive nature of subcultures… and if fan production isn’t actually a political statement but just pure enjoyment and so on…)
i also worry that by even asking these questions i’m perpetuating something similar to what ariel mentioned when comparing how lesbian porn and men’s consumption of it is not analyzed with critical vigor as slash… but is instead socially acceptable (to a degree) and financially lucrative to boot.
but alas, i am left with this unnerving sense of the denial/ignorance of the potential power of slash if we just leave this paradoxical debate with: “it’s just hott.”
Posted in Gender, Musings, Visibility | 15 Comments »
Sorry I can’t figure out how to emben images into comments… Here’s a link to a really great picture that I wish could be at the top of this post.
This is tangentially related, but I’ve been thinking about this since we talked about women’s need for escape with the soap operas and romance novels. This relates to gendered fandom as well as slash and homosocial relations.
When we were talking about the gender divide between Twin Peaks and Beauty and the Beast, I thought of another gendered phenomenon particular to Japan: Takarazuka. Takarazuka is an all-female theater which also doubles as a finishing school if girls can get in. It’s very competitive and it’s extremely popular among women in Japan. I’ve read a lot of about Takarazuka, and as far as I can tell, the popularity has nothing to do with feminist leanings toward having an all-female space. The founder Kobayashi Ichizo (a man) founded the Takarazuka Revue and school in 1913 as a profit-machine, but also with the intention of creating a place wherein girls would learn to become ideal women. The sexuality of the girls while in school was strictly guarded (against men). Because of the association of theater with sex, Kobayashi instituted a military-like regime of instilling discipline in the girls.
In Takarazuka, there are two roles: musumeyaku (female role player) and otoko-yaku (male role player). Takarazuka shows are sold out months in advanced, and when asked, the (mostly female) fans claim a specific allegiance to an otokoyaku. Women interviewed say that they are not attracted to the otokoyaku as women, but they would not like to see men on the stage either. One woman interviewed said that she would never do as much as she did for her favorite otokoyaku as she would for a real man. Another woman interviewed said that otokoyaku are better than real men. They are not ideals of what men should aspire to, but they are ideal men (Longinotto and Williams 1993). The otokoyaku and musumeyaku (female role players) portray unattainable gender ideals. They create worlds in which chivalrous men and beautiful ladies live and love and are happy with one another. They create worlds onstage that transfer into the imagination. These worlds are understood to exist only onstage and in the imagination. The fans of Takarazuka do not expect the world the Takarazuka to be part of real life. People watch Takarazuka’s revues to escape real life. Because the world of Takarazuka exists in a fantasy space, the otokoyaku and musumeyaku roles do not reinforce gender stereotypes, nor do they effectively challenge them.
This really reminded me of our discussion of both Beauty and the Beast as well as Nurse Betty and soap operas/romances. Regarding Takarazuka, women talk a lot about escape and fantasy, similar to women Radway interviewed. The most popular plays staged by the Takarazuka theater are those set in what we perceive as romantic settings: Versailles, Victorian England, etc. I attached a clip that shows Takarazuka doing The Rose of Versailles, a very popular play based on a manga of the same name.
This is a mash up of that particular play, but it only shows the two main male characters in different scenes. I was also interested in the homosocial interactions onstage. In the clip shown, the actors are supposed to be portraying men,and there is a definite intimacy of homosocial interaction. I was reminded of Jenkins’ idea that women are interested in seeing the relationships between men (as problematic as that assumption is), but what does it mean when women are interested in watching relationships between men through women actors? Or is it that they’re interested in seeing women’s relationships portrayed through male characters?
If you want more information on Takarazuka, look at Jennifer Robertson’s books and articles, Karen Nakamura and Hisako Matsuo’s article “Female masculinity and fantasy spaces: transcending gendersin the Takarazuka Theater and Japanese popular culture”, and the film Dream Girls by Kim Longinotto and Jano Williams.
A zero-calorie comment– that’s really interesting, Bizzy; thank you for writing it up.
is that an insult?
what? no!! I was saying that my own comment was zero-calorie, but even though I had nothing substantial to add I wanted to thank you for your comment. sorry, now I see that could be confusing.
Ok, Bizzy! I am absolutely head-over-heels in love with Takarazuka myself!
What’s interesting to me about the form in relation to fan culture is how despite the fact that the actual otoko-yaku and musume-yaku do not necessarily participate in challenging gender norms in their lives or even onstage, fan cultures surrounding Takarazuka *do*.
Though many fans of Takarazuka that I read about *did* ascribe to the “otoko-yaku as ideal man,” fantasy, and escape explanations of their interest, the chapter in Jennifer Robertson’s book Takarazuka: Sexual Politics and Popular Culture in Modern Japan discussing “Fan Pathology” mentions how some fan groups of Takarazuka allow members of the groups to *choose* an otoko-yaku or musume-yaku identity to perform in the group (actual Takarazuka performers do not make this choice). Thus, they voluntarily take on gender performances for the purposes of their fan practice that could be seen as subverting gender norms in some way (at least if you’re more into Judith Butler than I am).
Both posts have been really great so far, very rich with information and questions. Regretfully though, I want to bring another, maybe smaller point that I was planning on posting during class.
What I was most intrigued by during the discussion was the concept of possession. Some people argued that slash should not be discussed or shown to people who are not really interested in it or know what it is all about. That is a real interesting notion to me. I think it is something that comes up in all aspects of fandom.
To relate it to myself, if I see someone wearing a Phish (my favorite band) T-shirt, and I strike up a relatively in depth conversation with them, and I receive a “Oh I’m sorry, I just like the shirt,” response, I tend to get a little upset. Is this right or wrong? Who knows. I certainly am not proud of it, but it is my reaction nonetheless. Albeit this is a more minor example, I think it can really represent the possession and protection some fandom fans feel they need to have. Fandom is social by default, so shouldn’t I want everyone to share it? Then again, should I feel shame in wanting my loves to be relatively exclusive? I honestly think my feelings on the subject change daily, especially from taking this class.
Once again, sorry to stray from the 2 great previous comments.
I think most fandoms are extremely posessive of certain aspects of production. Take sports fandom. How many people get annoyed when someone wears a shirt with out supporting the team. Or, one step further, fair-weather fans/out of town fans of a team. I know some Red Sox fans who get annoyed with people who have only been fans since 2004. The common phrase being “they’re not real fans.”
Exclusivity is part of makes fandoms feel special, and helps fans identify each other. It automatically lets you know that you and another person are on the same wavelength. (Wearing a Phish t-shirt means that you are in fact prepared to have a long in-depth about the band)It also lets you know that you will not be judged because the people around you feel the same way. So exclusivity also functions as a form of support group.
The point I was going for is that exclusivity, or at least the desire for exclusivity is neither good nor bad, simple part of the process of creating any kind of group.
(Just a quick warning: I fear I might have generalized a lot in this comment, only because I am speaking mainly from my own experience as a slash writer and my encounters with other slashers.)
The exclusivity surrounding slash though is, I think, something apart from the exclusivity of, say, the indie music fan where being able to cite certain information (album date, track listing, etc.) grants you access to the inner sanctum of the community. With slash, I think the exclusivity stems from a fear of the outcry that could arise against slashers from non-slashers. When I was very involved in writing slash during high school, I was extremely weary of letting non-slashers read my fics because I was worried about how they would react to me and my work. My fears had nothing to do with them not being a part of the slash community. Sometimes I received intense interest about slash, and from there I would proceed to recommend other slash fics and authors as a kind of initiation. I also received my fair share of disgust and outrage. Maybe during the time Jenkins was writing, slash was something to kept hidden away and exclusive–a little treat wrapped within fan culture that only the tried and true can reach–but I think the slash community is presently very open to anyone willing to embrace it. I think the title of one of the subsections in the Jenkins’ slash chapter, “Fraught with Danger”, is an apt description of not only the threat slash poses to the status quo, but of also the threat non-slashers pose to slashers (in terms of non-slashers rejecting both the fic for defaming beloved characters, and the slasher for being “disgusting” and “sick”).
I also wanted to address one of Loretta’s questions in her post. I just wanted to touch on the idea of slashers and identifying with the characters they are writing about. When reading or writing slash, I, as a straight female, admit that I can’t identify with the characters on the level of sexual identification or their biology, but I can relate to them as people in love. I started writing slash as a way to further that identification: I could never identify with the female characters in anime, but I found myself drawn to certain male characters as being representative of myself within the series. When I slashed two male characters, I made sure that one of the characters was *my* character (the character in the series with whom I most identified), and I wrote the pair into various romantic scenarios that I idealized. Of course, in translating my fantasies into slash fics, I had to take into account certain modifications (i.e.: the slash fic “me” happens to have a penis = awkward!), but my male character was still me beneath the shiny slash shell. In that sense, to me slash was never hot because it was two guys having sex, but because it was a story about the sex I wanted to have and the love I dreamed of. With the lack of any “good” female anime characters, I used male characters because I could identify more closely with them as people and thus with the stories of their loves. I know this is barely scratching the surface of Loretta’s post, but I just thought I’d throw in my two cents (have to pick up my blog grade and all that ^_^).
I’m commenting to Illy’s post as the result of a long and heated (mostly on my part) discussion we had about her arguments above.
1. Ever since Lauren mentioned that Jenkins omitted some slash genres to avoid offending certain fans he worked with, I’ve been getting more and more disillusioned. Could it be that some of the disconnect between his description of slash and my personal experience of it is not just due to his being out of date, but due to his DELIBERATELY WITHHOLDING VITAL INFORMATION? Especially vital information that could have complicated what can come across as an essentializing argument about female sexuality being all smiles, cupcakes and butterflies?
2. That said, the slash character that “isn’t gay but likes to suck Spock’s cock” (as Jenkins so eloquently put it) is only one breed of slash character. This breed can be very problematic, because, as Jenkins mentioned, it reveals a discomfort some slashers seem to have around the idea of homosexuality, and it tends to verge on a “we’re not gay but we’re gay for you, oh female readers” Hot Lesbian aesthetic. There’s where Loretta’s concern about appropriating gay male experiences comes in, in my opinion.
However, some slash characters have full gay male narratives, involving elaborate coming out (to self and to others) sequences, character involvement with traditional gay male culture (David Bowie, ex.), and even experimentation with unnamed male side characters to establish the character’s gay cred before they even begin their slash relationship. A sort of lengthy example of this kind of gay male narrative is “Redeeming Time” by Minx (http://azkabanslair.slashcity.org/RT.htm) in which Sirius Black’s coming out as gay to James Potter helps James change from the insensitive person you see in Order of the Phoenix to the caring person many fans wish Harry’s father to be.
As a closeted girl in high school, this sort of slash story appealed *very much* to me. The first kind normally turned me off. Maybe my actively seeking out the second category gave me a skewed view of slash in general, leading me to assume that there were more gay slash characters than straight but “gay-for” ones?
3. Which brings me to Illy’s post above. I really think Illy’s getting at a more nuanced approach to the same things Jenkins argues in his chapter on slash. Jenkins mentions that slashers, faced with a dearth of strong female characters “take the path of least resistence” and identify instead with male characters.
There’s the key word: IDENTIFY. I often guilt-tripped myself as a slasher for being into “Hot Lesbians for women,” in the form of gay male porn written by and for women. However, Hot Lesbians (in the sense of male-directed “lesbian” porn) is based on objectification, not identification. The “lesbians” in Hot Lesbians are not people with a developed loving relationship (or a developed love/hate, abusive, pedophilic or any other kind of relationship). These Hot Lesbians are normally not conceptualized as being in a relationship with each other at all. In fact, many Hot Lesbians (such as the type frequently described in Penthouse Forum and on Howard Stern’s radio show) are involved in heterosexual relationships at the time they have their lesbian experiences. These same-sex sexual experiences are only “Hott” if they are between women known to be available to the opposite sex, preferably women who are actually straight but perform lesbianism in order to attract male attention.
Hot Lesbians are not people, they are female bodies. Or vaginas with dildos in them. Or something. Men watching Hot Lesbians (or reading about Hot Lesbians) do not identify with the women described. Their voyeuristic pleasure is based on viewing themselves as outside the scene. Any identification in a Hot Lesbians scenario for a male reader is assigned to a third-party male who is allowed to watch or participate in the Hot Lesbian Scene.
The slash reader may be attracted to both male characters. However, she will identify with one or both of these characters, viewing them not strictly as male bodies, but as people with motivations, emotions, and histories. The squeamishness slash writers often feel about naming male genitalia (“Kirk held Spock in his hand,” ex.) seems to flow from this emphasis on identification rather than objectificaton.
At the same time, the slasher may aspire to be one or both of the male characters, be attracted to one or both of the characters, and see themselves in one or both of the characters. In the case of a slasher with a specific ship loyalty (OTP!), the ship narrative itself can take on a life of its own, shaping the slasher’s (or het shipper’s for that matter) view of relationships in their real life (I fell in love with my best friend after reading volumes upon volumes of Sirius Black/Remus Lupin fanfiction, for example).
The tension of attraction/admiration/identification in slash is similar to same-sex attraction in general (at least in my experience), along the lines of, “Wow, she’s so cute… I should look like that! I wonder if she’d like me, even though I don’t look as cute as her…?”
In that sense, could there be something queer about writing yourself as a straight woman into a gay male relationship?
Now I’m done for the week (or maybe for my LIFE) with posting. Keep this bonsai tree alive on your own, guys.
Hey, Diana–
Okay, let me know (or not! if you do ever post again!!) if I’m misrepresenting you. But it seems to me that you’re motivated at least in part by finding a single model of slash that will explain– or at least identify something essential to– The Impulse To Slash in every instance it occurs.
I had a great conversation about this with Ariel after class today, actually. I won’t speak for her but what I’ve come to believe is basically this:
There’s not a single model, I think, which will offer a foundational explanation of all slashers’ action. Not all slashers conceptualize their own action the same way– even within subcommunities of slashers, you’ll find people quibbling about why it is they do what they do. From the lesbian slashers who identify with the characters they’re slashing, the straight-identified women who prefer to entertain sexual fantasies with no women in them; the WNGWJLEO slashers (ahem: that’s “We’re Not Gay, We Just Love Each Other”) who possess knee-jerk homophobic political opinions; the gay men looking for porn/friendship/representations of themselves in media; the relationship-centric women who want to see more emotion in their prime-time TV; the self-identified feminists who are trying to subvert pop culture by queering mainstream texts; etc… to the people who belong to more than one of those groups.
I think it’s totally possible, for example, to be a slasher who
1. started to identify as lesbian in her late 30s after her activity in fandom made her fall in love with another slasher, and is now married to her in the state of Massachusetts
2. writes over and over again the story of two characters realizing they’re attracted to one another, but resisting (for their own reasons) any kind of gay identity
3. finds the idea of two men having sex mindblowingly hot and, most of the time, doesn’t feel the need to look deeper than that
4. is dissatisfied with the TV show whose fandom she writes in, and wants to “fix” it by filling in the gaps with her fanfiction
5. digs the informal writer’s group her LJ friendslist provides her with, and relaxes online as a way to unwind from her day-job which doesn’t require creativity from her.
Actually, I have several different versions of that woman represented on my friendslist!
Anyway– I don’t have an answer, obviously. But I feel like there’s an almost scientific mindset behind the urge to narrow down, once and for all, based on all available data, predicative of future data, Why Women Slash. And I think that kind of mindset is ultimately counterproductive when we’re talking about something so contingent and slippery and essential-free as social identity, creative production, and community.
I think that a lot of what Diana discusses about “Hot Lesbian” emphasizes the difference in representation between it and slash stories. I preface this by saying that I do not read slash, so if what I say is empirically not true feel free to point it out.
Even if some slashers participate for the result of sexual satisfaction, there is a FUNDAMENTAL theoretical difference between that type of participation and straight men watching Hot Lesbian porn.
The use of the body- Hot Lesbian porn represents a tangible, visual, and PHYSICAL exploitation of the female body, while slashfic only imagines it or mashes up parts of episodes to act as innuendo for the imagined sexual behavior. Therefore, if the sexual fantasy is in its very nature exploitative, slashers do so in a way that is comparatively less harmful to the subject. Moreover, there is a clear delineation between actor and character in slash that is often not represented clearly enough in porn, where porn actresses are objectified consistently off screen and have difficulty separating themselves from their on screen lives.
Even so, I don’t think just because lesbian porn is commonly accepted means that it or slashfic should avoid being analyzed with “critical vigor.” I feel as though that argument doesn’t make sense a restricts our ability to critique forms of representation that the mainstream condones, but that may in fact be damaging (e.g. even though lesbian porn is commonly watch, it doesn’t mean that it should avoid critique. All that it means is that it deserves a lot more critical attention.)
Bascially everything from: “There’s the key word: IDENTIFY.” to the end of the your comment is exactly what I want to say, only more articulate and less full of commas.
One of the points that you brought up that I would be interested about talking about further (and I was surprised that Jenkins didn’t brush on) was the comment “could there be something queer about writing yourself as a straight woman into a gay male relationship?”
It also brings to my mind the thought that fandom (especially slash fandom) is very female dominated. What does it mean that women are writing erotica for other women? In someways this is the same as traditional romance writing (also for women by women) but does the greater (and I would think more intimate) degree feedback between writer and audience change things? Is it appropriating the queer experience to say that this is also homoerotic? Is it way past my bedtime? The world may never know.
Perhaps this isn’t completely on-topic, but I’m wondering why people believe male viewing of lesbian pornography is somehow more accepted than reading/watching of Slash.
There are a lot of questions related to this topic:
1. Which viewers? Are males more comfortable with lesbian porn than they are with Slash? What about females?
2. Are even males more comfortable with lesbian porn? I mean, how accepted is pornography in general, let alone a “niche” kind? The market is surely large, but so is the market for hard drugs, and those are not socially acceptable (not to say the two are actually similar). Could most people have a casual conversation about pornography, and with whom?
3. Is Slash today really NOT accepted? How stigmatized is it, really? We seem to be assuming it is underground today because it is socially unacceptable. It may just be unpopular. Slashers bring up a fear, but I’m wondering of any actual examples.
3a. How popular/unpopular is Slash, really? Jenkins writes from a specific time period, and although undoubtedly people are still creating Slash and Vids in the style he writes about, the type of people viewing AND creating them has changed. The viewing audience is more mainstream; we’ve already talked about that. But how have the types of creators changed?
Vids are videos — they are film. They are original, but not a unique entity in the medium; others have brought up that the way we “read” Slash is the way we “read” most films. We’re excluding so many topics of study by working with limited (perhaps historical) definitions of Slash, Vids, Porn, etc.
This is probably not the right space to bring this up, but lesbian porn is only acceptable by heterosexual males it seems when the two (or more) women engaged are femme. When was the last time you saw a film geared toward a male audience that had any butch women in it? I think the idea of male gaze is extremely important in the debate about lesbian porn as socially acceptable and slash. so the point that Jenkins brings up that it’s from a female gaze is important politically (despite the reservations I have about the possible fetishization of queer sex by people who identify as queer and actually don’t agree with a queer lifestyle. a different political debate.)
Well what I would say in regards to the lesbian porn vs. slash debate is that we seem to be comparing apples and oranges (pardon my ridiculous metaphor).
As Ari stated, porn is typically regarded as a tool for sexual release. The nature of the content is inherently sexual and was produced with arousal as the goal. Slash fiction clusters around popular media and redefines it outside its original or explicit definition by taking what is seen as implied and making it explicit. The only similarity I see is that sexuality plays a significant role in both forms but in altogether different fashions.
With that being said I also think comparing the two is somewhat problematic in other ways. We seem primarily concerned with the sexual aspects of slash but isn’t part of what originally lead to the spock/kirk debate the close readings associated with TOS and the moments fans found to support their theories? I find slash so compelling, although my knowledge of it is decidedly limited, because of how much close reading is related to the “taboo” relationships that are illustrated.