Let's talk about sex.
Dec. 19th, 2006 08:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
truepennyETA: since ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
metafandom has apparently linked to this post sans context, let me state explicitly that I'm talking about the MISLABELING of original fiction featuring a same-sex relationship--as for example, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
matociquala's Carnival--as slash in reviews and commentary by people who are not slash writers themselves. I'm not trying to talk about what slash writers choose to do within their fandoms and communities. Not a slasher. Don't play one on TV. I'm arguing that slash, as a term, belongs to fanfiction, and should not be applied to works that are not fanfiction. My reasons for feeling as I do, explained in the following post, stem partly from my own career as a pro writer whose work features a lot of same-sex relationships, and partly from my appreciation, as a genre theorist, of the intertextual subversion inherent in what slash does.
The subtext, as Giles says to Buffy in "Ted," is rapidly becoming text.
hth
More specifically, let's talk about slash and why it is offensive and heteronormatizing to equate it with homosexual relationships.
The subversion/containment model (proposed by Foucault and applied by a bunch of New Historicist critics in the 1980s) has buried somewhere in the unexamined assumptions of its premise the notion that somehow subversion is bad. Or nonsustainable. Conservation of energy. A society tends to conserve the status quo.
This may be descriptively true (she says, looking dourly at her own society), but prescriptively, it sucks major moose cock, because it assumes that subversion exists to be contained. Hence Natalie Zemon Davis's elaboration of Foucault with her "pressure-valve" idea. (Which, btw, I think is incredibly helpful for understanding extremely conservative societies--like I said, descriptively the idea can be very helpful.)
Slash is subversion.
(For those of you who are still wondering what on earth I'm talking about, slash is a kind of fanfiction which posits a romantic/sexual relationship between two characters who in canon have no such thing. You might also describe it as an underground movement. It's named for the labelling convention that marks it; the first slash was K/S: Kirk-slash-Spock.)
Slash says, "These two canonically romantically-uninvolved characters have a close, intense, and obviously loving relationship. Our society--as inscribed on these characters by censorship and other kinds of normatizing pressure--does not allow that relationship to be developed in a sexual way. Let's transgress the taboo."
Now, obviously, that transgression can be done mindfully or otherwise, but the key component to slash is the overt sexualization of a non-sexual, or only subtextually sexual, relationship.
That relationship is, 9 times out of 10, between two men. Because, 9 times out of 10, the most intense and interesting relationship in any given canon is--wait for it--between two men. (And that has to do with a whole bunch of other factors and influences including, you know, four or five millennia worth of patriarchy.)
Now, why am I so adamant that slash is not the same as homosexual relationships?
Because I insist that homosexual relationships ought not to be categorized as subversive.
(Okay, yes, leftist liberal commie bitch, that would be me. Please don't tell me you're surprised.)
Labelling a homosexual relationship in a work of fiction as slash is wrong for a couple of reasons. One is that it's eliding the line between a work of fiction and commentary ON that work of fiction. I think it's inherent to slash that it is subverting and deconstructing and undercutting a canon text's assumptions about sexuality and love (using "text" here in a broad and metaphorical sense, rather than the literal one of words-printed-on-a-page). Slash is a game played with canon, and part of its value is in the tension it both creates and illuminates between canon text and subtext.
The other reason that it's wrong to label homosexual relationships, whether in or out of fiction, as slash is that it is reinscribing heteronormativity on our society and our discourse. It's a syllogism. Slash is gay sex. Slash is subversive. Therefore, gay sex is subversive. The subversion/containment model is a BOX, and as long as we keep putting homosexual relationships in that box, we are reinforcing the idea that heterosexuality is the standard by which all other sexualities will and ought to be judged. The same idea that is powering the (often hysterical) attempts to define marriage in such a way that gay and lesbian people cannot have it. Because their committed monogamous relationships are being judged as subversive.
And that's so horribly wrong that it's eaten all my words.
metafandom has apparently linked to this post sans context, let me state explicitly that I'm talking about the MISLABELING of original fiction featuring a same-sex relationship--as for example, matociquala's Carnival--as slash in reviews and commentary by people who are not slash writers themselves. I'm not trying to talk about what slash writers choose to do within their fandoms and communities. Not a slasher. Don't play one on TV. I'm arguing that slash, as a term, belongs to fanfiction, and should not be applied to works that are not fanfiction. My reasons for feeling as I do, explained in the following post, stem partly from my own career as a pro writer whose work features a lot of same-sex relationships, and partly from my appreciation, as a genre theorist, of the intertextual subversion inherent in what slash does.The subtext, as Giles says to Buffy in "Ted," is rapidly becoming text.
hth
More specifically, let's talk about slash and why it is offensive and heteronormatizing to equate it with homosexual relationships.
The subversion/containment model (proposed by Foucault and applied by a bunch of New Historicist critics in the 1980s) has buried somewhere in the unexamined assumptions of its premise the notion that somehow subversion is bad. Or nonsustainable. Conservation of energy. A society tends to conserve the status quo.
This may be descriptively true (she says, looking dourly at her own society), but prescriptively, it sucks major moose cock, because it assumes that subversion exists to be contained. Hence Natalie Zemon Davis's elaboration of Foucault with her "pressure-valve" idea. (Which, btw, I think is incredibly helpful for understanding extremely conservative societies--like I said, descriptively the idea can be very helpful.)
Slash is subversion.
(For those of you who are still wondering what on earth I'm talking about, slash is a kind of fanfiction which posits a romantic/sexual relationship between two characters who in canon have no such thing. You might also describe it as an underground movement. It's named for the labelling convention that marks it; the first slash was K/S: Kirk-slash-Spock.)
Slash says, "These two canonically romantically-uninvolved characters have a close, intense, and obviously loving relationship. Our society--as inscribed on these characters by censorship and other kinds of normatizing pressure--does not allow that relationship to be developed in a sexual way. Let's transgress the taboo."
Now, obviously, that transgression can be done mindfully or otherwise, but the key component to slash is the overt sexualization of a non-sexual, or only subtextually sexual, relationship.
That relationship is, 9 times out of 10, between two men. Because, 9 times out of 10, the most intense and interesting relationship in any given canon is--wait for it--between two men. (And that has to do with a whole bunch of other factors and influences including, you know, four or five millennia worth of patriarchy.)
Now, why am I so adamant that slash is not the same as homosexual relationships?
Because I insist that homosexual relationships ought not to be categorized as subversive.
(Okay, yes, leftist liberal commie bitch, that would be me. Please don't tell me you're surprised.)
Labelling a homosexual relationship in a work of fiction as slash is wrong for a couple of reasons. One is that it's eliding the line between a work of fiction and commentary ON that work of fiction. I think it's inherent to slash that it is subverting and deconstructing and undercutting a canon text's assumptions about sexuality and love (using "text" here in a broad and metaphorical sense, rather than the literal one of words-printed-on-a-page). Slash is a game played with canon, and part of its value is in the tension it both creates and illuminates between canon text and subtext.
The other reason that it's wrong to label homosexual relationships, whether in or out of fiction, as slash is that it is reinscribing heteronormativity on our society and our discourse. It's a syllogism. Slash is gay sex. Slash is subversive. Therefore, gay sex is subversive. The subversion/containment model is a BOX, and as long as we keep putting homosexual relationships in that box, we are reinforcing the idea that heterosexuality is the standard by which all other sexualities will and ought to be judged. The same idea that is powering the (often hysterical) attempts to define marriage in such a way that gay and lesbian people cannot have it. Because their committed monogamous relationships are being judged as subversive.
And that's so horribly wrong that it's eaten all my words.
New Protrude
Date: 2017-04-10 12:23 am (UTC)http://assjob.tobuy.in/?gain.elyssa
venus erotic fair erotic photoshoot erotic cd erotic obsession adult toys
Full-grown galleries
Date: 2017-04-10 12:25 am (UTC)http://hotpic.erolove.in/?entry-alia
vista black by benjamin activation bolivia xxx black china labs bring my man back spells 2000 ford windstar sel old hickory
Communal pictures
Date: 2017-04-10 12:37 am (UTC)http://oralfixation.purplesphere.in/?epoch.katelynn
erotic pages bondage gay sex free pornography erotic s
Pictures from venereal networks
Date: 2017-04-10 12:42 am (UTC)http://best.tits.erolove.in/?post-dorothy
porn pictures of maids amateur particulier porn uncut cock gay porn eastern euro celeberti porn movies image full size porn
Experimental Job
Date: 2017-04-10 12:44 am (UTC)http://hotties.pictures.erolove.in/?entry.angelica
95,1 ikss fm rock chuck of southern idaho animal pictures girlfriends films lesbian triangles 3 sandy summer webcam megaupload youngtube sex
Adult galleries
Date: 2017-04-10 12:50 am (UTC)http://hotpic.erolove.in/?entry.ashtyn
playboy myspace layouts pantyhose movies youtube dawn from pokemon naked sexy naked aeab girls get fucked clips amateur adult models for hire
Adult galleries
Date: 2017-04-10 01:07 am (UTC)http://pattaya.girls.blogporn.in/?entry-makenna
telephone ltd ornaments catcher eksklusif
My brand-new website
Date: 2017-04-10 01:07 am (UTC)http://vanessa.blog.porndairy.in/?leaf.alysa
brazilian women for marriage dating iranian german dating website free classified ads montreal singles australia
Adult galleries
Date: 2017-04-10 01:21 am (UTC)http://premium.cars.purplesphere.in/?post.yasmin
cliphunter porn movies oldest women in porn famiglia porn exotic massage porn hot porn chics
Open matured galleries
Date: 2017-04-10 01:33 am (UTC)google weather app android change wallpaper all htc mobile phones android apps programming tutorial free android app store
http://pornmarket.replyme.pw/?mail.kiana
mobile app dev live tv for android apk free download silverlight app android downloads xxx sex metamorph apk
Adult galleries
Date: 2017-04-10 01:36 am (UTC)female sex women and young men foods to be avoided
http://sissies.purplesphere.in/?view.mikaela
free online 3d games 18 strapon start a cleaning business sissy panty training feminization of te black man crete fishing x frame bondage printable potty chart
Experimental Protrude
Date: 2017-04-10 01:36 am (UTC)http://daily.boobs.adultnet.in/?entry-anissa
free teen porn movie tv channels redheads schoolgirls porn yougnest new porn stars porn movies of teens having sex yellow fevah porn
Grown up galleries
Date: 2017-04-10 01:47 am (UTC)games sexes android video cam sites sexy girl in sexy bikini app play store apk android development ubuntu
http://games.android.telrock.net/?gain.mariana
mobile game app development cell phone reviews top 20 free android games live tv for android amazon coins
Recent site
Date: 2017-04-10 01:48 am (UTC)mmorpg na android free android mobile games downloads pacman game free download best app games sexy lady wallpaper
http://pornmarket.replyme.pw/?stage.karissa
wallpapers for android phone free android apps on google play free prepaid phones hd desktops free phone wallpapers android
Experimental Poke out
Date: 2017-04-10 02:18 am (UTC)http://cars.tube.purplesphere.in/?post-elyse
penny porche porn pic galleries free gay mobile porn sites xxx porn pussy showing orgasm free porn cliips nadias porn
My brand-new website
Date: 2017-04-10 02:55 am (UTC)http://pattaya.girls.blogporn.in/?entry.amina
independent pool chapelle network woon-jae
Pictures from community networks
Date: 2017-04-10 02:58 am (UTC)http://elite.dating.blogporn.in/?diagram.kaelyn
free ads uk plus size dating website dating apps for relationships social network script open source elite dating ervaringen
Loose adult galleries
Date: 2017-04-10 02:59 am (UTC)http://arab.girls.tv.yopoint.in/?entry-tianna
sunny google telephone sa seyy
Delivered adult galleries
Date: 2017-04-10 02:59 am (UTC)http://onstrapon.purplesphere.in/?stage.brandy
erotic photoshoot lit erot erotic korean movies erotic ghost stories erotic poster
My new website
Date: 2017-04-10 03:04 am (UTC)http://muslim.clit.pornpost.in/?post.mandy
chatten accomplishments myths out ethiopians
Pictures from venereal networks
Date: 2017-04-10 03:06 am (UTC)http://bigboobs.yopoint.in/?entry-madalynn
ty fox porn star torrent sites porn privacy fun free porn games online xpress porn firred nurse porn
Grown up galleries
Date: 2017-04-10 03:08 am (UTC)http://premium.dating.pornpost.in/?profile.dasia
find love in london russian wife dating dating jamaican dating sites sa hiv positive dating india
Full-grown galleries
Date: 2017-04-10 03:16 am (UTC)http://peggme.yopoint.in/?epoch.mara
erotic stuff erotic obsession sexy girl erotic photoshoot erotic art wallpaper
Mature site
Date: 2017-04-10 03:33 am (UTC)http://euro.dating.hotblog.top/?entry.adrienne
find local milfs african women dating white men speed dating san diego single mom dating blog gay herpes dating
Mod Project
Date: 2017-04-10 03:54 am (UTC)http://hotties.pictures.erolove.in/?post-alice
affliction shirts for men ass licking site mid south community college gambar sex artis indonesia terbaru botsford school of dance penfield ny