Responses to [perceived] assaults on [Diana's] parenting

[Queer as John]

Diana <dianasdolls at yahoo.com> said:

> The majority of parents are just not ready to explain to their child how gay
> sex 'works' exactly in context with his favorite fictional HP characters.

I am becoming increasingly frustrated with your continual, unceasing
equations of the appearance of gay characters with sex, sex, sex, because
that belittles gay people. The stereotype of gay people as rampant
nymphomaniacs is as ludicrous and demeaning as the stereotype of black
people as criminals. Please stop perpetuating it.

> Why would I voluntarily tell my son everything I know about sex before he's
> ready to hear it?  Overloading kids with info they are not ready for is not
> the way to explain sexual feelings and intercourse to a child.

Oh, honestly, nobody's suggesting that. And your use of "overloading"
perpetuates a commonly-held Anglo-American perception that children are
ignorant. Studies show that in countries where love, sexual feelings and
intercourse are explained by various degrees at an age-appropriate level
without acute societal embarrassment, children make more stable, rational
and informed decisions about their own lives and sex lives.

And, honestly, it's not *hard* to explain love to a kid. As an educator, I
have to do so frequently. To a kid from a two-parent home, I would say "You
know how mummy and daddy love each other? Well, those two men love each
other the same way." Obviously, to a kid whose parents are not living
together, I would adapt the reference to one of a common societal reference
point: "You know how Shrek and Princess Fiona love each other?"

[aside: Y'know, I really think that movie theaters ought to let educators in
for free. It's SO helpful to be able to use common reference points like
that.]

> [2] My son represents the 'everychild' who isn't being watched over by a
> parent. 

Yet, despite attempting to distance yourself from 'everychild', you
nonetheless take offence at others commenting on the fact that this
'everychild''s situation is *not* a recommended one:

> I don't know if any of you have children, but I should tell you
> right up front that insulting a mother by telling her she must be a
> bad parent who lets her kids run rampant on the internet reading
> whatever they want is *extremely* loaded and offensive.

Barb wrote, using language which implies that you *are* supervising your
child:

> if you are not supervising your child's internet use, that is a decision that
> you might need to reexamine

and I wrote, using language which again, implies your responsible parenting:

> But surely, as a responsible parent, you monitor your nine year old's internet
> usage, and thus the point about children being disturbed by material, of
> whatever nature, is rather moot?

You wrote:

> The majority of parents are just not ready to explain to their child how gay
> sex 'works' exactly in context with his favorite fictional HP characters.

See above. Once again, you equate gay people with sex, sex, sex. The
majority of parents *should* be ready to explain to their child how love
works. A loves B like C loves D. Simple. Even the Kinsey study shows that
50% of males experience homosexual attraction in their lives. 10% show
exclusively homosexual attraction.

Consider ten kids you know. Statistically, at least of those kids is gay.
Five of them will have homosexually oriented attraction.

Wouldn't you as a parent want to make sure your child knows that if he is
one of those kids, you will love him unconditionally? I certainly would. And
I certainly wish that my parents had assured me of that love before I came
out to them last year, though they did so afterwards ‹ it would have made
the whole process a lot less stressful.

If you're interested, check out PFLAG.org, the Parents, Families and Friends
of Lesbians And Gays. The Unitarian Universalist church also has some useful
suggestions at UU.org.

> In my son's case <snip> I would worry about him losing the image of HP he
> currently enjoys and that we share talking about together.

By the words you use, you imply that you *value* the lack of gay characters
in HP, and that your HP experience would be denigrated by their inclusion.

There are no words to express how strongly I reject that value.

> Other kids may get negative ideas and reinforcement of
> free-floating stereotypes about gay people or hetero people that
> take much work to undo by their parents.

By the words you use, you imply that you believe that slash fanfiction
conveys negative ideas of people. In particular you imply that you believe
that slash fanfiction conveys negative ideas of non-gay people. I find this
amusing, because you state that you are not a slash reader.

As someone who's actually *read* slash, I disagree utterly.

> I don't know if any of you have children, but I should tell you
> right up front that insulting a mother by telling her she must be a
> bad parent who lets her kids run rampant on the internet reading
> whatever they want is *extremely* loaded and offensive. If John
> thinks terms such as 'normal' and 'homosexual' are offensive to gay
> people, he's only hit the tip of the iceberg of offensiveness when
> insulting someone's parenting skills in such an offhanded manner;
> even more so when all these downright rude accusations and
> inferences come from misreading my original post and filling in gaps
> with their own conjectures.

The impression formed by others of your views is based on the language you
use and cultural reference points of you and others. If you wish to be
perceived differently, use different language or attempt to understand
others' cultural reference points.

> I'm going to try to give all of you the benefit of the doubt, but as
> I'm very offended right now, I'm trying as hard as I can to be civil
> and clear in my responses.
> 
> I started this thread by saying that I don't read slash pairings and
> didn't get their appeal.

The words you use also made me perceive that you equated the appearance of
gay people with sex. I ‹ and others ‹ found this offensive.

Moreover, the replies pointed out that without explaining the rationale
behind your views, your views appear to be an irrational dislike of slash:
homophobia.

> I have *never* once said that anyone who writes or reads slash fanfic based on
> the HP characters is evil, deranged, or anything even remotely like that.
> <snip>  I do not think ill of people who read and write slash fiction, whether
> gay, hetero, bi or alien hybrid.  I even said that I wholeheartedly support
> the fans of slash to read it, write it, wallpaper their walls with it,
> whatever, but that I would not be reading it myself because I like the HP
> characters as based in my visions from reading and re-reading all four HP
> books four or five times.

Your words remind me of the argument that many people in the gay community
hear all the time: "I don't hate gays, but I WISH they wouldn't keep rubbing
my nose in it/being so *blatant*/kiss in *public*!". Non-gay people display
their love all the time: in movies, on the street, in books. Why shouldn't
gay people?

Your words once again make me think that you value a lack of gay people in
the HP world. I object to that thought.

> Don't any of you have friends who are into hobbies that you find
> strange, boring or maybe even bizarre?  And when that friends talks
> about his hobby to you, after a while, you just shake your head,
> smile and say, "As long as you're having fun.  I don't get it,
> myself, but whatever."  That is how I feel about slash fiction.  I
> can't see the appeal, but if it's your thing, go to town.

Your comparison of hobbies with a sexual orientation is as offensive to me
as it is ludicrous. Diana, nobody ever killed a Trekkie for being a Trekkie.
I cannot recall an instance in which a model railroader ever murdered a
war-gamer. 

People do kill people for being gay. THAT is why homophobic attitudes and
comments are not acceptable. THAT is why there are so many people in this
forum leaping up in defence of slash as a representation of gay issues. THAT
is why I take offense.

> My son does *not* wander the internet unsupervised and he has never
> visited a fanfic site in his life.

So...what's the big problem? Why take offense from Barb's and my comments
when we *specifically* assumed that you did *not* let your son do those
things?

> The point of my first post was that, unlike my son, many children do
> not have a parent watching over them to see what they are surfing on
> the internet.  I represented my son as an 'everychild' who could
> find a fanfic site and end up with an unwantedly changed vision of
> the HP characters.  Don't children have the right to maintain their
> own vision of the HP characters from reading the books without
> interference from fanfics that bring in ideas they may not
> understand, want or even be able to handle yet?

Of course they do. But children also have the right to *develop* their own
vision of the HP characters from reading the books *and input* from fanfics,
discussion groups and other sources that bring in ideas they are able to
understand. 

> The problem we are going to have with coming to an agreement on this is that I
> feel that several fanfic writers and defenders feel it's okay to muddle with
> others' personalized and internal images of the HP characters, even children's
> views of the characters, because it will cause "growth", "acceptance",
> "tolerance" and "understanding".

Yes! I do think that! I think that posing questions about the nature of
love, or the nature of war, or the nature of interpersonal relationships,
WILL cause all four of those things! That's what fanfiction ‹ and book
discussion ‹ is about! It's taking situations and characters about whom we
have preconceived notions and examining those preconceptions in the light of
differently-interpreted information. Information about characters and the
wizarding world from others' cultural and personal perspectives, whether
those perspectives are from an African-American woman (Ebony's narrator,
Angelina, in Trouble in Paradise), a gay man (my Oliver and Percy in
Keeper's Secrets), a Jane Austen fan (Heidi's Homage), a Buffy fan (Keith
Fraser's howlingly funny Ginny the Vampire Slayer).

Reading Ebony's work and interacting with her on a fandom level HAS caused
me to grow as a person. It has increased my understanding of
African-American issues. It has reinforced my acceptance and tolerance of
people who are physically different from me. I am immensely grateful to
whatever fates or deities conspired to have our paths cross.

> That's a load of horse manure.  Children don't suddenly gain blazing
> insight into acceptance of other's differences because of reading a
> fanfic posted on some website.

No, but they might be forced to *think* about these issues, and make
decisions for themselves. To consider the parallels between racism and
homophobia.

> I would not like to see unsupervised children stumble upon a slashy
> or sex-filled [whether gay or hetero] fanfic of their favorite
> fictional characters because the fanfic site was poorly organized,
> incompletely or inaccurately labelled or as easy to get past as
> lying to an onscreen question.

By the words you use, you imply that you would not like to see unsupervised
children read, or talk about, any gay people, even in G-rated situations.

I object to that in the strongest possible terms. Why should children always
be supervised when reading, talking or thinking about people of a different
sexual orientation ‹ or skin color, to draw a parallel?

> If my son is any example, when he's logging on to some favorite children's
> sites or playing a computer game, a screen will sometimes pop-up that asks him
> if he wants to go to go to site b or if he wants to type in his name and he
> will have to punch a button that says "YES" on it to get to the games.  I've
> seen these sites and games and they are set up exactly the same way as the "no
> one under 18 warning screen" described on this board that simply asks if the
> kid is over 18; just press the yes button to continue, in other words.  It has
> now become automatic for my son to hurriedly press yes to continue on to his
> game.  He stopped actually reading those screens a long time ago.  I have no
> doubt that many kids are the same and would just click right through that
> screen without thinking about it or reading it.

So, lying, in violation of a Terms of Use contract that you and/or your son
have undoubtedly agreed to to register with these sites or games, is okay?

> The truth is parents can't watch their kids every single minute.  If we could,
> there would be no child abductions, child sexual abuse or accidental deaths.

I am astounded. Do you not know the statistics that the VAST majority of
child sexual abuse is by an immediate family member who lives with the
child? And that, again, the VAST majority of child abductions are carried
out by one of the child's parents?

> The truth is that some parents will not want their children to be exposed to
> gay pairings, regardless if actual intercourse is or is not described, between
> characters the children and the adults have grown to love in a image that
> doesn't fit that scenario.  That doesn't make the parents homophobes.

Honestly, what other motivations could the parents have than homophobia? So
far, nobody has been able to quote a *rational* explanation for this
theoretical parental dislike. Again, if it is not a rational dislike, it is
an irrational dislike. A phobia. Homophobia.

> I'm called a homophobe by others simply because I have no desire to read slash
> fiction based on HP characters.

I refer to my previous paragraph.

> I went to a fanfic site to see how the organization was since so many
> responses to my original post went out of their way to tell me that there was
> no way I could "stumble" upon stuff I didn't want to read and everything was
> so properly labelled and clear that I must be an idiot if I did end up reading
> something that tainted my personal image of the HP characters.  The main page
> had a bunch of blurbs for new fics in no particular grouping or in any way
> sorted.  

Actually, they are grouped by length and theme. As it says on FA's main
page, Schnoogle (green) is for novel-length fics. Riddikulus (gold) is for
humor. AstronomyTower (red) is for romance. TheDarkArts (blue) is for
everything else, including angst, darkfic, etc.

I know people ‹ friends of mine in fandom ‹ who avoid browsing TheDarkArts
for precisely that thematic reason: they don't like darkfic. Same with
AstronomyTower and romance.

> What I actually found was blurbs written in such a way as to be
> quite memorable [so you'd want to read the story, obviously] and
> they were able to bring forth instantaneous unwelcome images.

As both Heidi and Barb have pointed out, FA's "blurbs" are checked for
rating (PG-13). If you are concerned about "unwelcome images", whatever you
define them as, then I suggest that you don't read fanfiction. Simple as
that.

--John

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Queer as John || john at queerasjohn.com

AIM, YM & LJ @ QueerAsJohn || www.queerasjohn.com

"There's nowt as queer as folk."  --English proverb
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