Devaluing friendship & my ranting

[Diana <dianasdolls@yahoo.com>]

Elkins wrote):
It enforces what has always struck me as a very bizarre and
artificial notion: namely, that the closest relationship in
ones life "ought" to have a sexual element. If it does not,
then it is dismissed as "just" friendship. 
This is a big pet peeve for me, too.  It surfaced during my sojourn 
in
X-Files fandom, when people kept insisting that there was something
sexual going on between Mulder and Scully--or that there should be.  
"I mean, *look* at them," a friend of mine would say. "They're both
young and attractive, and they spend all that time together.  There's
no *way* they wouldn't have something going on."

Dicentra replied:
<Well, that might be a good argument for RL, but this was a fictional
relationship that the writers very deliberately kept platonic. (We
don't speak of series from the sixth-season ender on.)  And it was a
*wonderful* relationship.  It was intimate, they cared for each other
very much--you could even go so far as to say that they *loved* each
other--but there was no sexual element, nor was there any "sexual
tension," as TV Guide and other journalists liked to say. 

<snip great discussion of what was great about "The X-Files" main 
couple not be a "couple">
 
That's why I want to keep the Trio free from entanglements with each
other (or if they entangle, they disentangle rather quickly).  
There's a dearth of intimate, non-sexual relationships between 
people in fiction.  As one who has had some wonderful, close, 
platonic relationships with guys, I'd really like to see society 
pull its head out and give these kinds of relationships more 
emphasis than the romantic ones.  They're much healthier, they do 
less damage to the individuals, and they leave room for the 
individuals to grow separately or apart.>
 
Now me:

I agree with you about the whole "X-Files" relationship between 
Mulder and Scully - no sexual relationship, but a strong bond of 
friendship was part of the appeal of the show! 

I can extend this complaint by Elkins and Dicentra about how strong 
friendships are completely undervalued in today's world to include 
one of my complaints about the public perceptions of friendships 
between two men and between two women, whether fictional characters 
or real life people.  

In today's world, two men/women or boys/girls with a strong, 
unshakable friendship, such as Frodo and Sam in "The Lord of the 
Rings", Kirk and Spock in "Star Trek", Remus and Lupin in PoA, Ron 
and Harry in all the HP books and possibly Ginny and Hermione in 
future books, to name just a few are labelled as being either 
latently homosexual in nature ["Those characters just don't admit 
or 'know' they're gay, poor dears."] or as being full of what is 
more often then not, quite frankly, completely imagined or downright 
willfully misinterpreted 'clues' in the texts, performances or 
wardrobe ["When he was upset that Spock died, Kirk was really crying 
for his lover! Can't you see it?"]  

I can think of one show that was so sure it was going to arouse 
speculation of sex, lust and soulmate bonding between same-sex 
friends that they went with it and added hints, looks and dialogue 
to add fuel to the fire.  That show was "Xena, Warrior Princess".  
And they had fun with it, the clues they put in were intentional and 
for the benefit of their gay fans, but those fans who wished to 
ignore that aspect could do so if they so chose.  I enjoyed that 
show a great deal and thought the characters made a great couple, 
whether straight, bi or gay.  The friendship was strong and I picked 
up on the clues and saw the subtext, but I never assumed the subtext 
was there just because the characters were so close that they *must* 
be lesbians.     

Every reader brings their own personality with them into the books 
(s)he reads and movies and TV shows (s)he watches - we can't help 
it.  A gay person may prefer to think of characters they are 
attracted to as gay, whether or not that character's sexual 
perference has been defined.  A heterosexual person may prefer to 
think about that same character they are attracted to as staight, 
again, no matter how the character is sexually defined.  But, what 
bothers me is how frequently same sex friendships are treated as 
nothing more than fantasy; that they can't possibly exist because a 
friendship that strong must involve something sexual.  Many times I 
feel like all these great, heroic friendships in literature and 
elsewhere are being presented, by people who feel they must 
interpret these stories for us, as nothing more than very chaste, 
erotic odes to great homosexual romances, as if that is what *all* 
of them must be.  And that is quite wrong.  Not because I think 
homosexuality is wrong, but because the constant sexual pairing of 
close friends of the same sex denies the existence of true, heart-
felt, I'd-die-for-you, soul-baring, one-for-all-and-all-for-one 
friendships.

Close male friends face this dilemma more often than close female 
friends because two men who bond, cry together and face tough 
obstacles together are immediately going to be suspected of being 
gay and being "in-love" with each other.  And the speculation then 
goes on and on ad nauseum, frequently becoming such a beast that the 
heart of true friendship that lies within the story is eclipsed by 
snide remarks and snippy jokes about those "gay" characters 
masquerading as straight people.  This is a great disservice to 
everyone, whether gay or straight.  

All too often great friendships between heroic characters become 
fodder for gay-bashing or icons for gay true love, and they are 
neither.  The essence of the friendship and connection - one *not* 
based on sexual attraction, but soul-bonding friendship - between 
these characters gets lost in scuffles and name-callings.  And, most 
importantly, the lessons these stories might teach us about 
friendships and human bonding get lost as well.   

Why can't two people who share goals, like-minds or just like each 
other be *just* friends?  Why must close bonds between two people be 
automatically labelled as sexual in nature?  Why can't two 
characters, regardless of whether they are both straight, both gay, 
one straight and one gay share deep bonds of friendship without 
nearly every other person being so anxious to conclude that deep 
personal bonds with another person must mean they are having sex?

I'm reminded of "Anne of Green Gables" by Lucy Maud Montgomery.  
Anne, an orphan, finds her first true friend, Diana Barry, and 
happily realizes that she has made a 'bosom' friend.  If published 
in today's world, these books would have caused an uproar as 
misguided [and occasionally downright gestappo-like] 'family' 
organizations would have labelled Anne and Diana as "thinly-veiled 
lesbians" we must protect our children from.  This view is, to be 
quite frank, a load of cr*p.

Ron and Harry, as I see them, are like Anne Shirley and Diana Barry -
 bosom friends.  It's a shame that so many people would snigger over 
this term now.  :{  Where has the idea of friendship completely 
untainted by sex gone to?  I can't be alone in my lament for real 
friendship without all the imagined sex and lust forcibly injected 
into it, can I?

So, to finally sum up...true friendships are being disregarded in 
favor of the idea that lust and sex make up more of a person's 
personality and friendships, whether in the real world, in a book or 
on a screen.  If this view persists, then one day, no one will 
have 'friends'...just potential and current sexual partners that 
appeal to he/she in varying degrees of lust.  A good friend will 
just be someone they haven't slept with yet and a stranger will just 
be someone they haven't rated on their own personal "on-a-scale-of-
one-to-ten-how-much-would-i-want-to-sleep-with-this-person" rating.

Don't even get me started on how oversexualized the culture of the 
world, particularly the USA has become...

End of rant.

Diana