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This was originally part of a different, rantier "why claiming that slashing close friends demeans their friendship disturbs me" post that I have yet to make, but it just kept getting longer and longer and didn't really seem to fit there, and then it sat on my hard drive for most of the summer and fall, unposted, because it was triggered by a specific other fan's comments on a discussion post on the lj of someone who was/is, if not a central participant in my primary (and small) fandom, at least a recognizable name on the edges of it, and I didn't want to start wank. But then I saw this post making statements very similar to X fan whom I shall not name, but this time about the entire gay rights movement,* and I decided that maybe I ought to post it after all.
It was only tangentially connected to the topic of the un-made "if anyone asks why I have to 'make them gay' one more time, I will cut a bitch," post anyway, through being another anti-slash thing I hear that also disturbs me, and through also dealing with the sexualization of philia (or, technically, the addition of eros to an already existing philia). Namely, the accusation that by insisting on reading sexual and/or romantic desire and homoeroticism into close friendships, slashers themselves are responsible for the decrease in the comfort level with which such relationships are treated in the media (i.e. the fact that screenwriters have to hasten to assure audiences, via gay jokes or tacked-on het romances or making people "cousins" or whatever, that this pair of guys are Definitely Not Gay), because the prospect of people saying or thinking they're gay threatens straight men's masculinity (straightness is, apparently, a vital part of masculinity, and always has been, and this definition of masculinity is totally worthy of respect and consideration).
I shall now go off on a long tangent about Victorians, because no discussion on sexualizing friendship would be complete without a mention of Victorian men and women and their "dearest friends." If you wish to skip the following two paragraphs of tl;dr, then here's the short version: A hundred and forty years ago, homosexuality was criminalized, marginalized, and vastly less visible -- and presumably straight men and women engaged in what would by modern standards be considered pretty lovey-dovey behavior with their friends-of-the-same-gender. To quote someone far wittier than I, "Curtain fic has no schmoop like a Victorian man talking about his 'special friend.'" Now, homosexuality is no longer illegal (in many places) and we don't talk about our eternal (platonic!) soul-deep devotion to other men/women anymore.
During the 19th century, it was not uncommon for close friends of the same gender to display extremely homoerotic and/or romantic-seeming behavior toward one another (both in novels and in various historical sources). I have read more than one letter written from one married, supposedly heterosexual woman to another (likewise married) woman describing the letter-writer's love for the recipient, her longing for the recipient's presence, and her passionate desire to embrace, kiss, and "sleep beside" the recipient once again (I would provide citations, but my Southern History books are still in storage while I move, as are most of my 19th century novels). It reads like some of the more intense smarm fic - detailed descriptions of intense emotional attachment and a desire for physical contact that nevertheless is intended to be platonic. Some of these women could have been lesbian or bisexual, but I doubt all of them were.
My personal belief is that the levels of sexual repression/reticence about sex in Victorian society had a lot to do with this oddly romantic/erotic seeming philia. In a society where women were commonly assumed to not be capable of orgasm and where lesbianism was rarely acknowledged, and where male homosexuality was likewise little discussed (prior to the 1870s, homosexuality was considered a perverted/sybaritic/unusual sexual act, not a sexual orientation in the modern sense, and like most kinds of sex, was not discussed in polite company), some gay, lesbian, and bisexual men and women may have remained ignorant of their own sexuality, and sublimated their sexual/romantic desires into a sort of intense friendship. Or some completely heterosexual men and women might have felt more open to make physical and verbal demonstrations of friendship and love for other men/women because in a society where gays and lesbians were marginalized and largely invisible, the possibility of their friendships being taken for gay relationships never occured to them as a possibility at all, much less as something to fear and avoid. Or they could have just been following a cultural trend that involved using large amounts of hyperbole when discussing friendships (i.e. these relationships were no more intense than most modern friendships -- they just described them more floridly).
If the second hypothesis is true, then it's sad to think of what homophobia might have cost us as a society in terms of people's ability to express affection for one another -- because homophobia, not increased visibility for gays & lesbians, would bear the entire burden of the blame for making people fear certain degrees and kinds of intimacy. If people didn't still see all sexualities other than heterosexuality as wrong/bad/unnatural/dirty/sinful/etc., then they would no more fear someone assuming they and their best friend were a gay couple than they would someone assuming they were siblings.
But maybe it is a correct hypothesis. Maybe the increased visibility of gay people, the slowly accumulating successes of the gay rights movement, maybe that is why American men don't hug and kiss their male friends anymore (though men in other countries where gays and lesbians are equally no-longer-invisible still do, so the theory clearly doesn't apply across the board). Maybe the fact that TPTB are aware of the existence of slash now is exactly why, to paraphrase another fan, the original Starksy & Hutch tv show was a completely serious depiction of close and devoted friendship (and, yes, love) between two men while the recent movie was one long gay joke.
It still doesn't mean slashers should shut up, or that we're obligated to show any consideration for straight men's apparently so-fragile masculinity. Do we really think their fear/disgust over homosexuality deserves to be respected?
Decreasing LGTB visibility and pandering to people's ingrained homophobia would not be the answer to the above mentioned fear of making friendship too intimacy. It would simply perpetuate it by ensuring that people's homophobic/heterosexist worldviews were never challenged. I shouldn't even have to say this in fandom, where so many people more enlightened and better educated on and equipped to speak about privilege and -isms than me have been drumming the concepts into our collective heads for years (I for example, know my own attitudes on some topics has changed over the past few years and especially the past few months, because there is nothing like finding yourself on the receiving end of "you're not really oppressed/you brought it on yourselves/you need to watch your tone" arguments to make you realize what they sound like), but I've seen people whom I otherwise respect and who should know better arguing that slashers have only themselves to blame when shows are hetted up/Hollywood and the networks are quick to resort to homophobia to deflect any potential assumptions of homoerotic subtext as recently asthe last couple of weeks this summer. (remember when I told you this had been sitting on my hard drive for ages?)
I am far from a posterchild for liberalism or feminism or anti-racism or any other political or ideological cause in fandom, as people who have encountered me in discussions where I succumb to the unfortunate urge to express my suddenly-infinitely-more-polarized-and-passionately-held-solely-because-people-are-telling-me-I'm-wrong-and-being-disagreed-with-makes-me-go-HULK-SMASH opinion have cause to know. When I, the politically moderate white girl who thinks Red Sonja cover art is hot, am the one trying to explain why Barbara Gordon being stuck in a wheelchair fovever after breaking her back while Bruce Wayne's broken back heals without a trace is suspect, or Sharon Carter being brainwashed into having sex with someone and then getting pregnant against her will is squicky, or biting my lip to keep from lecturing another fan on why keeping slash on the downlow and gay relationships out of the media to avoid threatening straight men's masculinity is catering to and encouraging homophobia... *shakes head*
Dude, I'm supposed to be the conservative girl here (well, not in comparison to mainstream middle-American society, by whose standards I'd be a flaming liberal godless queer for supporting abortion rights and wanting to be able to marry my girlfriend, but in comparison to lj fandom at large). Is this "but it's so obvious even I can see it -- how can you not get it" feeling what it was like for other people who've had to listen to me for the past seven years?
* And, off topic, can I say that this is a not a pov on the usefulness of protest/confrontation/calling people on their x-ist bullshit I had expected to see in fandom, where it seems to be generally agreed that the way to deal with people who do bigoted things like use "spicy curry" lj tags to refer to Indian politicians or think "miscegenation" = bestiality = a good prompt for a kink challenge (not saying those are the same as voting yes on Prop 8, just that all of the above are indications of bigotry) is to confront the person responsible and demand an apology & retraction, with the understanding that a degree of righteous anger is fully justified, and that the "tone" argument is fallacious.
It was only tangentially connected to the topic of the un-made "if anyone asks why I have to 'make them gay' one more time, I will cut a bitch," post anyway, through being another anti-slash thing I hear that also disturbs me, and through also dealing with the sexualization of philia (or, technically, the addition of eros to an already existing philia). Namely, the accusation that by insisting on reading sexual and/or romantic desire and homoeroticism into close friendships, slashers themselves are responsible for the decrease in the comfort level with which such relationships are treated in the media (i.e. the fact that screenwriters have to hasten to assure audiences, via gay jokes or tacked-on het romances or making people "cousins" or whatever, that this pair of guys are Definitely Not Gay), because the prospect of people saying or thinking they're gay threatens straight men's masculinity (straightness is, apparently, a vital part of masculinity, and always has been, and this definition of masculinity is totally worthy of respect and consideration).
I shall now go off on a long tangent about Victorians, because no discussion on sexualizing friendship would be complete without a mention of Victorian men and women and their "dearest friends." If you wish to skip the following two paragraphs of tl;dr, then here's the short version: A hundred and forty years ago, homosexuality was criminalized, marginalized, and vastly less visible -- and presumably straight men and women engaged in what would by modern standards be considered pretty lovey-dovey behavior with their friends-of-the-same-gender. To quote someone far wittier than I, "Curtain fic has no schmoop like a Victorian man talking about his 'special friend.'" Now, homosexuality is no longer illegal (in many places) and we don't talk about our eternal (platonic!) soul-deep devotion to other men/women anymore.
During the 19th century, it was not uncommon for close friends of the same gender to display extremely homoerotic and/or romantic-seeming behavior toward one another (both in novels and in various historical sources). I have read more than one letter written from one married, supposedly heterosexual woman to another (likewise married) woman describing the letter-writer's love for the recipient, her longing for the recipient's presence, and her passionate desire to embrace, kiss, and "sleep beside" the recipient once again (I would provide citations, but my Southern History books are still in storage while I move, as are most of my 19th century novels). It reads like some of the more intense smarm fic - detailed descriptions of intense emotional attachment and a desire for physical contact that nevertheless is intended to be platonic. Some of these women could have been lesbian or bisexual, but I doubt all of them were.
My personal belief is that the levels of sexual repression/reticence about sex in Victorian society had a lot to do with this oddly romantic/erotic seeming philia. In a society where women were commonly assumed to not be capable of orgasm and where lesbianism was rarely acknowledged, and where male homosexuality was likewise little discussed (prior to the 1870s, homosexuality was considered a perverted/sybaritic/unusual sexual act, not a sexual orientation in the modern sense, and like most kinds of sex, was not discussed in polite company), some gay, lesbian, and bisexual men and women may have remained ignorant of their own sexuality, and sublimated their sexual/romantic desires into a sort of intense friendship. Or some completely heterosexual men and women might have felt more open to make physical and verbal demonstrations of friendship and love for other men/women because in a society where gays and lesbians were marginalized and largely invisible, the possibility of their friendships being taken for gay relationships never occured to them as a possibility at all, much less as something to fear and avoid. Or they could have just been following a cultural trend that involved using large amounts of hyperbole when discussing friendships (i.e. these relationships were no more intense than most modern friendships -- they just described them more floridly).
If the second hypothesis is true, then it's sad to think of what homophobia might have cost us as a society in terms of people's ability to express affection for one another -- because homophobia, not increased visibility for gays & lesbians, would bear the entire burden of the blame for making people fear certain degrees and kinds of intimacy. If people didn't still see all sexualities other than heterosexuality as wrong/bad/unnatural/dirty/sinful/etc., then they would no more fear someone assuming they and their best friend were a gay couple than they would someone assuming they were siblings.
But maybe it is a correct hypothesis. Maybe the increased visibility of gay people, the slowly accumulating successes of the gay rights movement, maybe that is why American men don't hug and kiss their male friends anymore (though men in other countries where gays and lesbians are equally no-longer-invisible still do, so the theory clearly doesn't apply across the board). Maybe the fact that TPTB are aware of the existence of slash now is exactly why, to paraphrase another fan, the original Starksy & Hutch tv show was a completely serious depiction of close and devoted friendship (and, yes, love) between two men while the recent movie was one long gay joke.
It still doesn't mean slashers should shut up, or that we're obligated to show any consideration for straight men's apparently so-fragile masculinity. Do we really think their fear/disgust over homosexuality deserves to be respected?
Decreasing LGTB visibility and pandering to people's ingrained homophobia would not be the answer to the above mentioned fear of making friendship too intimacy. It would simply perpetuate it by ensuring that people's homophobic/heterosexist worldviews were never challenged. I shouldn't even have to say this in fandom, where so many people more enlightened and better educated on and equipped to speak about privilege and -isms than me have been drumming the concepts into our collective heads for years (I for example, know my own attitudes on some topics has changed over the past few years and especially the past few months, because there is nothing like finding yourself on the receiving end of "you're not really oppressed/you brought it on yourselves/you need to watch your tone" arguments to make you realize what they sound like), but I've seen people whom I otherwise respect and who should know better arguing that slashers have only themselves to blame when shows are hetted up/Hollywood and the networks are quick to resort to homophobia to deflect any potential assumptions of homoerotic subtext as recently as
I am far from a posterchild for liberalism or feminism or anti-racism or any other political or ideological cause in fandom, as people who have encountered me in discussions where I succumb to the unfortunate urge to express my suddenly-infinitely-more-polarized-and-passionately-held-solely-because-people-are-telling-me-I'm-wrong-and-being-disagreed-with-makes-me-go-HULK-SMASH opinion have cause to know. When I, the politically moderate white girl who thinks Red Sonja cover art is hot, am the one trying to explain why Barbara Gordon being stuck in a wheelchair fovever after breaking her back while Bruce Wayne's broken back heals without a trace is suspect, or Sharon Carter being brainwashed into having sex with someone and then getting pregnant against her will is squicky, or biting my lip to keep from lecturing another fan on why keeping slash on the downlow and gay relationships out of the media to avoid threatening straight men's masculinity is catering to and encouraging homophobia... *shakes head*
Dude, I'm supposed to be the conservative girl here (well, not in comparison to mainstream middle-American society, by whose standards I'd be a flaming liberal godless queer for supporting abortion rights and wanting to be able to marry my girlfriend, but in comparison to lj fandom at large). Is this "but it's so obvious even I can see it -- how can you not get it" feeling what it was like for other people who've had to listen to me for the past seven years?
* And, off topic, can I say that this is a not a pov on the usefulness of protest/confrontation/calling people on their x-ist bullshit I had expected to see in fandom, where it seems to be generally agreed that the way to deal with people who do bigoted things like use "spicy curry" lj tags to refer to Indian politicians or think "miscegenation" = bestiality = a good prompt for a kink challenge (not saying those are the same as voting yes on Prop 8, just that all of the above are indications of bigotry) is to confront the person responsible and demand an apology & retraction, with the understanding that a degree of righteous anger is fully justified, and that the "tone" argument is fallacious.
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