(veering OT) Re: This Ship stuff sounds like shojo

[Alex Corvus]

No: HPFGUIDX 11637

I didn't know if I should label this SHIP or FF, or both, or neither ...

Jim Ferer wrote:

>>I'm curious about the slash pairings we talk about here -- Ron/Harry,
Harry/Draco (!) and so on.
A lot of the ship discussion here is sounding more and more like a Japanese
phenomenon, "shojo":
<snip>
What's the dynamic for this?>>

Er, what explanation are you looking for, exactly? <g> No seriously, because I
could go on and on about this, but I don't want to if it's not the info you're
looking for. Are you asking about relationship dynamics within the slash
pairings, or are you looking for some discussion of what the general appeal
is? Or something else?

A couple of people have addressed the shounen-ai/yaoi phenomenon, which I'm
not nearly as conversant with as I am with slash (mainly info from Thorn's
site and from aestheticism.com), but I think the seeds of both phenomena are
the same. Japanese culture appears to have more of an understanding that
same-sex pairings, particularly m/m, hold considerable interest for some girls
and women, which Western culture - particularly in the US - seems to find
distinctly ... odd. If that's what you're interested in, I can elaborate on a
number of reasons I think the appeal is there, from natural wiring in the
lizardbrain, to explorations of homosocial bonding in source materials, to
deconstruction of male sexuality, to the desire to see queer characters in
media works, to sexual politics in art.

Firebolt mentioned the seme/uke component of shounen-ai/yaoi, and while I
agree that slash has less formally structured relationships, I do think
there's a tendency to lock characters into dynamics that resemble the seme/uke
dynamic. You can see general trends, in a lot of cases, of making one partner
the alpha partner and the other the beta. To bring this back on topic, there's
lots of slash fanfiction out there that makes Lupin the passive partner to
Black, that makes Draco the passive partner to Harry, both emotionally and in
... well, in the sexual mechanics, to be somewhat blunt. Not all slash does
this, but it's enough of a trend to be noticeable. In egregious cases, the
passive partner ends up getting "femmed" to a degree that makes me,
personally, gnash my teeth and tear out my hair.

And then there's the whole discussion of people who are attracted to buddy
pairings (Ron/Harry) as opposed to those attracted to antagonistic pairings
(Harry/Draco) ...

G'head, ask. I could run my mouth about this to considerable length. <g>

Alexa,
holding down the Ron/Draco fort
(Harry? Who's that?)


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