Writercon Panels Post 2

[lunabee34]

I want to finish my formal discussion of the con with a recap of a panel that executrix moderated.

SLASH: GAY, QUEER, BOTH, NEITHER

Exec was the lone mod and I think she did an enviable job of directing conversational traffic flow. She stepped in with a joke, a reflection, a comment--but mostly what she did was allow the audience to speak.

This is a potentially explosive conversation. A con groups together people from all segments of fandom and society at large, and the possibility for the discussion to descend into hostilities rather than anything useful is monumental. I must say that I was impressed with the group of people attending this panel. There was passion and sincerity and seriousness but also a real effort at bridge building and communal understanding and I have to credit Exec's leadership for making that possible.

Again, this was a panel that raised more issues than it provided answers for.

One of the first things that was mentioned is the propensity of slash to elide the female characters. This is one of the things that irritates me about slash the most. Erasure of female characters does not have to be a convention of m/m slash in the same way that obliterating Angel off the face of the earth isn't necessary to make Buffy/Spike a successful ship. Demonizing, killing off, or simply neglecting to mention canon characters in order to make one's OTP more written in the stars is never cool. Never. Do the extra work and write a story with depth, with nuance, instead of taking the easy route. For many of us, the journey to that non-canonical relationship is more important than the torrid sex anyway.

Someone mentioned that the idea of slash as a genre is problematic. A sexual orientation is not a genre. I agree with this whole heartedly. Like alixtii, I think the descriptive power of a lot of the labels we use in fandom is pretty much nil at this point, particularly since they are often working at crosspurposes--serving on the one hand as warnings and on the other as advertisements.

Does a canon queer pairing fall under the heading of slash? Or does slash only signify canon subversion? I have to admit that when I first got into fandom, the Old Skool definitions of slash were not readily apparent to newbies and so I just assumed that slash meant same-sex attraction and behavior, regardless of canonicity.

One of the audience members cited slash as a shameful fannish activity and related anecdotal evidence of women who used posted het content to a community under one name and slash content under another in order to escape censure from friends.

WHY DON'T MORE WOMEN AND MORE QUEER WOMEN ESPECIALLY WRITE FEMSLASH???????????
Talk amongst yourselves.

Several people talked about the ways in which queer people's actual lived lives are not reflected in slash stories and there didn't seem to be a consensus on this issue. Some commenters felt like slash does a real disservice by not accurately reflecting the lives of queer people; others felt that as examples of fantasy, slash stories are not beholden to versimilitude. Still others felt like there isn't a Queer Standard of Experience with which to hold fiction up to anyway.

kindkit brought up the question of creating gay communities in fic. How do you create a gay community for your character without making everyone gay or writing a whole bunch of OCs?

The most important thing that I took away from this panel was something that callmesandy said: Write what you want, but be prepared to face the consequences. This resonates really powerfully with me. We have no censors and I am so appreciative of that. I'm glad that a wide variety of kinks and opinions get aired on the fannish stage. But by the same token, we must acknowledge that when what turns us on or makes us happy or operates as our status quo is hurtful or appropriative or misogynistic or homophobic or racist, that we can and will be called to responsiblity for what we have written by our peers. I understand that mileage on these issues varies and that true consensus is impossible. But I cannot help but applaud the activism that takes place in our microcosm of society.

Comments

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

I hate to speak for anyone else, so I'm not. This is just my understanding of why the idea of slash as a genre is problematic and may not reflect anyone else's. Also, I'm just now working on articulating this as I write the comment so bear with me.

I think it's the idea that a person's sexual identity, hir sexual being, can be reduced to the same level as "action-adventure" or "romance." It feels dismissive. Maybe somebody else should chime in. *looks around*

Why don't I write more femslash? As a bisexual woman, my fic archive should be full of femslash and while there's some there, there's way more gen and m/m slash. Without counting numbers, het probably gets the least representation. I think, for me, this is because writing femslash and het feels like I'm exposing a part of myself for examination by the reader and that can be uncomfortable.

Re: consequences
I think that when Buffy becomes an evil bitch who never even really liked Xander and who wants to smite his newfound gayness all so Spike can see his way clear to claiming Xander as his life mate or when J2 get it on to the backdrop of the killing fields--for me, those things are wrong. I don't want to read them and I don't want to write them (although I am certain that I have written fic that fails my own tests, particularly in my early days of fandom). I have huge problems with the cultural appropriation and sexism these kinds of stories represent. However, I know not all fen agree with me or these kinds of stories wouldn't keep appearing. Does that make sense?

[mofic.livejournal.com]

I think it's the idea that a person's sexual identity, hir sexual being, can be reduced to the same level as "action-adventure" or "romance." It feels dismissive. Maybe somebody else should chime in. *looks around*

It doesn't feel dismissive to me, as a lesbian. I think "gay and lesbian literature" is a perfectly valid genre, and one I look for in my book store and library all the time. And there are plenty of sub-genres within it - lesbian mystery, gay erotica, coming out stories, etc.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

*nods*

It is a useful way to locate stories with the kinds of content you want to read.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

I think it's the idea that a person's sexual identity, hir sexual being, can be reduced to the same level as "action-adventure" or "romance." It feels dismissive.

Hmm. Is it the fact that people are centering their reading around the sexual orientation of the characters, deciding whether or not to read a story based on whether (for instance) it includes a queer female or not, that you find dismissive--or the language of genre being used to describe this pattern of reading behavior?

However, I know not all fen agree with me or these kinds of stories wouldn't keep appearing. Does that make sense?

Not really? Obviously we have the physical capability to post whatever we want, and (in the USA) the legal right to say whatever we want (although being hosted is not guaranteed). But by saying "write what you want" there seems to be something which goes beyond recognizing this into an endorsement of unethical activity, as if appropriation and resulting criticism were both morally neutrally processes. Cf. "kill who you want, but be willing to face the consequences."

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Re: the first question

I don't know? *shrugs* Slash as a genre isn't something I'd really thought about before that panel but when some of the commenters talked about it bothering them, that really resonated with me. I remember thinking, "Of course," and now I feel like I can't get a very good handle on why I had that gut feeling of agreement. Does that make any sense? I think it's a little of both that bothers me.

Re: your second questions

Again, I don't really know how to respond ethically to this question. I feel a great (personal) tension between the idea of censorship and the tacit endorsement of words and ideas I think are very harmful. You are absolutely right to say that appropriation and communal criticism of it are not morally neutral processes and when any group exerts communal pressure on another, an act of judgment is taking place.

I also know that mileage on these issues varies and that even within a group (women, PoC, queer individuals, etc) not all members will agree on what is offensive, dangerous and appropriative.

Somebody else chime in, please! I'm flailing here, I think.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I think you could actually go a lot of interesting different places with a criticism of fen centering their reading on the orientation of the characters, but of course each place would get its own unique response. It's certainly intersecting the "Why slash?" question and the quality/kink dichotomy (which reared its head in interesting ways at WriterCon both in expected places--like kbusse's presentation--and unexpected places as the meta perspective and the how-to perspective interacted and sometimes clashed in fascinating ways; more on that when I discuss the science vs. magic panel, I think).

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

I am really interested to hear what you have to say about that panel as I had already gone home at that point.

I was just re-reading something on my journal in preparation for the Lesbian Erotica posts that Elizabeth and I were talking about doing and I came across this comment glossing made:

So not a minstrel show (http://lunabee34.livejournal.com/104255.html?thread=1561407&format=light#t1561407).

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

And . . . I hit post before replying to the second half. It's certainly intellectually honest and coherent to recognize that we as human creatures might hold moral theories which are subject to error, and that is as such necessary to allow for the freedom of fen to write fic which may be verboten under any individ
ual fan's ethical system. (Of course, this allowance is more or less built into the structure of the internet and can, I think, be safely taken for granted.) Clearly, the person behind the eyeballs must follow her own conscience and make decisions for herself; relying on an oppressed Other to tell her what was okay or not would constitute an abdication of her moral responsibility, not to mention her faculty of reason, and be something which is totally not the oppressed person's job.

This does not mean we have to abandon any sense of a quasi-objective ideal of right and wrong being bigger than any individual fan's prejudices, however. (Quasi-objective because it's not necessary to write it metaphysically into reality. It's perfectly okay for this standard to be contingent upon the historical moment, as long as its not radically relativistic on an individual level.) Acknowledging that we are often wrong doesn't mean there isn't a right answer out there.

If "write what you like, but be ready to face the consequences" were replaced with "Follow your own conscience in posting what you think appropriate, but be aware you will be subject to the criticism of those who (perhaps erroneously, perhaps not) disagree with you," I think I'd be much more comfortable with the sentiment. For me, however, the original implied that the only ethical calculus one's writing need go through prior to writing/posting was whether one was willing to weather the wankstorm it might provoke--a sentiment I found problematic to say the least.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

For me, however, the original implied that the only ethical calculus one's writing need go through prior to writing/posting was whether one was willing to weather the wankstorm it might provoke--a sentiment I found problematic to say the least.

Okay. I see where you are coming from now. It's always so fascinating to me that when I really start to examine ideas that seem logical and obvious on the surface, there are more often than not other issues lurking beneath. And when you unspool "write what you like, but be ready to face the consequences," the underlying premise isn't one that I'm willing to accept either.

Thank you for showing me that. I think "Follow your own conscience in posting what you think appropriate, but be aware you will be subject to the criticism of those who (perhaps erroneously, perhaps not) disagree with you" is a much less pithy but more accurate way of stating what I understood "write what you like, but be ready to face the consequences" means.