Homosexual male: Minority in HP slash?

[[ Moit ]]

Just my two cents..

First off, I didn't read the whole thing. *sorry* It's just a lot to read and then give my opinion on.

I am a bisexual female who has been writing in the HP Slash fandom for about 4 years now. I don't personally see gay men as objects. But as I am a writer I do view my *characters* as tools. The most important thing here is separating my view of gay men from my view of gay fiction.

I am/was/whatever a member of the "gay culture". For a period of time in my life, I identified as a lesbian. Now I have more or less settled on bisexual because I have had intimate relationships with both men and women. From a political standpoint, my opinion on gay men is nearly nonexistent. My opinion on a man who prefers another man in his bed is about as important as Joe Smith's opinion on my preference for whips and leather. I am not objectifying real gay men. I have gay friends and I treat them just the same as a treat my straight friends. They are all just my friends.

As for gay/slash fiction, this is a completely different story. Fictional characters are just that. Fictional. You can cut fictional characters limb from limb, sew them back together, make them do unspeakable things with their siblings and then wrap them up in a brown paper bag. They are about as real as a picture on a paper. They are made entirely for entertainment purposes and the Harry Potter characters are no different.

On the subject of male/gay male slash writers.. I don't think it's a matter of a gay man knowing more about gay sex than a straight female. My dad knows a crap ton about cars, but that doesn't mean he can write it down in a book and make sense. Is it clicking into place yet? Of course a gay man is going to know how to have gay sex. But that doesn't mean he can write an eloquent piece of smut. I am not saying that gay man cannot write slash, however, so don't get me wrong. The girls that would knock a guy for writing slash are just ignorant twits that don't know the meaning of the word constructive. They should be well versed in N00B however...

That's just my opinion on it all. I'm a die hard Harry/Draco fan and spend most of my time reading the stuff. I don't think you have to be gay/straight/male/female/transsexual/whatever to appreciate it. It's not something to be beaten down by labels. It's just fiction. It's just entertainment.  

[Dwayna DragonFire]

Gay men are not objects. They should not be played with in that way.
Gay men need to be treated as friends rather than play-things. We should just let them be gay. whenever I hear a guy saying he' gay, I think "That's cool." and tell him that he can be whatever he wants to be.
I'm bisexual myself, so...  

[Radioactive Dinosaur]

It's always bothered me how a disturbingly large amount of women in fandom insist that slash, or even fandom in general, is "female space." Seriously. I'm a semi-regular poster on two general fandom/meta lj communities, and you see essays on this sort of thing all the ******** time. If I see another essay on "why women like slash" or "fandom as a female community" or "feminist issues in fanfiction" or anything else that's alarmingly gender-exclusive, I'm going to throw my monitor out the window, followed by a big, embarrassing tantrum because I'll no longer have a monitor.

And although I've never had anyone blatantly flame me or call me a troll, I've definitely felt out-of-place or excluded from certain fan-related activies. I think most of the sexism in fandom is like this actually; that is, not so much outright male-bashing as more passive things like assuming everyone's female or creating threads, essays, communities, and the like that apply only to women and are very obvious about the fact that they're women-only. And while I really doubt that it's most female fans' (I use this term because I personally have always seen 'fangirl' as a derogatory term, like the fandom equivalent of 'noob' or something.) intention to exclude all men from fandom-related discussions, it's still offensive. I mean, no one wants to feel excluded from an activity they nomally enjoy, and getting the message that you don't belong there sort of takes all the fun out of it.

Also, I think a more relevant essay/thread of Alchemia's would be this one on gender in fandom, which includes not only men in fandom but transpeople in fandom as well (yeah, I know, that's not what the thread is about, but it was the whole reason I actually put the entry on my favorites list. Because it applied to me personally, and included a lot of things I'm too much of a noob to do a very good job of wording myself.)  

[RubieGloom]

Guillotein

Lunar_Blade

Ok, my true belief in life is that "Everybody is entitled to their own opinion". Whether it be good or bad. Frankly I couldn't care less if women think as Gay guys as objects, because there are women out their who DON'T. Catch my drift? I am probably talking like a friggin' hippy... Anyway, some straight men think their wives are objects... Soloution? Tell him to stop it, if he doesn't, leave. It's simple. I dunno but I just think the world is a balance, everything happens for a reason.

Another example. Goths are thought to be all emo and mean. I know Goth and she is very nice, and some people agree that Goths CAN be nice. It's all about your opinion and whatnot. To tell the truth I probably worded this whole thing out wrong and no one can find head nor tail of this, but meh, it's my philosophy. I am straight, good for me. My friend is Gay, good for him. The trick is to NOT CARE what they say. If you get too affected by these people you let them win.

I never fully read that journal so I could be on a whole other track. Sorry I killed the first post.

^^ I'm glad there are people like you.. it really shouldn't be something to give a s**t about, in the first place.
But what I'm talking about mostly is the large mass of people who contradict their beliefs by going and doing the very thing they are against being done to them to another group of people. (Did that make sense? ^^;; )
Maybe this subject doesn't give room for very broad discussion.. +,+

i guess it just depends on the person really..some people may think that gay slash is hot or whatever, but it doesn't mean that they would actually want to be part of it..i think it just depends on how deeply you go into something...each women has to speak and feel for herself...i personally think that some male slash is hot, but if i could really have things my way, i would just want to be with one guy, not two..  

[Abbyabs]

err hi.
i'm a straight, harry/draco shipping, harry potter obsessed fan girl. so there's my label for those that want to know. i dont really do the whole ms. feminist thing but i do believe you cant help who you love. it doesnt mean a thing what sex they are - its that you love them for them. that you want them to be happy even if you cant be the person that makes them so. that your heart speeds up when they're sitting next to you. that they sing a song only you can hear.
after all, a person once told me:

In love the smallest distances is too great, and the greatest distance can be bridged

 

[pudoupan]

Reacting to what Alchemia said about writers (female writers I think it was but I can't remember) taking two perfectly male characters and then turning them on each other and creating not a gay relationship but a relationship between an undefined gender. I think that is the whole gist of the slash fandom. I mean face it most of the stories we read, the characteristics and personalities of the characters are altered if not changed completely. Their hate, mistrust or even likes are taken away and something new is placed in their stead. True, these males in the fanfics may not match up with the real gay men of today's society, and that their gender is not bended but also is not the same; just morphed into some kind of "other". But I think there is nothing wrong with this. It just the way things are portrayed. In short, it is one thing:FICTION.

However this takes me to the other point that because some/most(i'm not sure of the figures) of gay men don't relate to the gay men inside fanfiction, the fandom circle can sometimes be really limited to the female populaion because in short, they don't know what the real gay men behave like so they just accept what is dished out to them.

Erm... yeah so my whole logic/discussion/[insert label for this rant] has gone right back to zero. (Sorry if it didn't make sense- actually I'm still trying to make sense of it all too)

But logic cast aside, I am welcoming with open arms and bribes to any male/gay/[insert your label] who would want to join this fandom. I agree that it is extremely unfair that females should be dominating this fandom and that n00bs would diss male writers. stare (Damned n00bs I say). And plus, men write perfectly dandy fics. I've known and read quite a few fics (actually more than just quite a few) written by men and more often then not, they were pure fangirl heaven. Absolutely delicious fiction I'd say.

Ok my whole point doesn't make sense.... but my point is (here we go again) that fanfiction is just a story - shut up and just read it (oh and don't forget to review xp )  

[Ariazella Malin]

Dwayna DragonFire

Gay men are not objects. They should not be played with in that way.
Gay men need to be treated as friends rather than play-things. We should just let them be gay. whenever I hear a guy saying he' gay, I think "That's cool." and tell him that he can be whatever he wants to be.
I'm bisexual myself, so...

I agree with you there.  

[Piker]

One of my best friends is a lovely homosexual boy who writes brilliant Harry/Draco slash... I never got the "this is a girl thing" because we've always been shippers together obsessing over this pairing or that.

 

[Asthen]

Actually, I've never witnessed that sort of bias against males in the slash community. On the contrary, when I used to RP slash, lots of girls would pose as gay males, haha. But yeah, I don't see how you can close off the world of slash and limit it to just females. That's like saying that only straight males like porn. Sure, the majority of people are straight males, but there are females (of whatever orientation) and gay males that enjoy it, too.
The idea of saying someone can't enjoy slash because of their gender is ludacris.  

[DuFellsNanGoroth]

Yes i totaly agree wit h the topic

LUC  

[Deliciae]

[ Message temporarily off-line ]  

[StarryNako]

I am a straight girl, in my opinion wouldn't a gay male show more insight to the fandom of slash to a chick? I've always been a little confused when it comes to the whole gay slashers and chick slashers.

(All in my experience from being in various slash fandoms)
I mean if your looking for the whole fluffy fics, then yea probably better off going to a chick slasher, but if your looking for a good, true slash fic that goes better with the pairing then maybe you should look for a gay slasher........I don't t know, thats just my opinion on everything and like I said before I've never quite grasped the whole gay slashers aren't good slashers vibe....  

[RJ Hazelwood]

As a transgendered (male to not-quite-female androgynous person) who writes slash fanfiction myself, I think a huge point is being missed here. True, it seems that (originally at least) most slash/yaoi was meant to appeal to women. That being said, the themes and desires expressed are universal, and I don't see why one has to be a member of any group to enjoy it. Straight women, gay men, straight men, whatever.....it doesn't matter. Anyone can understand the overall theme of most slash fanfiction: love, desire, sex, angst. These are universal human feelings, and not confined to some subset of the population.

I bristle when I read things like "Oh, only women should be allowed into this slash guild" or "only gays can truly understand and write about homosexual relationships." BULL! Why are we so quick to divide amongst ourselves? Straight people can write about gay relationships, gays can write about straight ones; again, the themes of love and similar are universal, and any good author can, if they haven't experienced something themselves, at least imagine what that something might be like.

The Slash/yaoi community should embrace every facet of itself. This includes the straight woman, who enjoys reading about love between beautiful men. And the gay male, who wants to read about something far more loving and tender than what you'd ever find in "gay porn." And the dreamer, who likes to create their own universe, where love is eternal and happy endings are possible.

As for the bashers and detractors, well, so be it. Trust me, as a transgendered person I've heard it all. "You shouldn't use the men's room, since you're not really man enough now;" "You'll never be a woman, no matter what you do;" "You don't belong here, this group is for XYZ only." You can either let it get to you, or you can brush it off and be proud of who you are.

You're a gay male slasher? Great! I say announce it to the world, damn whatever anybody else might think. You're a woman slasher? Same deal. Don't let the comments of a few separatists scare you into hiding who you are. To the true intellectual, who enjoys reading an awesomely crafted bit of fanfiction, the gender of the writer doesn't matter. Do what you do, and let things happen.  

[Aeolua]

I do think everyone is entitled to their own beliefs but I still think that they should have more Homosexuality in harry Potter...i just dont get enough of it from Fanfiction...! crying  

[364 Unbirthdays]

You should do your research.
But instead of ranting, I shall just say that it only annoys me when fangirls go as far as having yaoi fantasies of real men, or go nuts when they see a homosexual couple or a male cheerleader...