SLASH/SHIP/FF: Slash discussion

[Alex Corvus]

No: HPFGUIDX 11722

Oh goodie. I get to talk slash instead of cleaning the kitchen, which is what
I really should be doing. Heh.

Neil:
>>Something related more toward the predominance of women among HP slash
writers could be explored here.  It has been touched on before.  Is it just
that women in general are more inclined to write HP fanfic or fanfic in
general, or is there some other reason for the bias?  How many of these
writers are straight women and what *is* the fascination?  Are there many f/f
HP slash fanfics out there?>>

There's an HP femslash list out there - isn't the listowner here on HP4GU?
Jen's already discussed the increase in femslash in general. I know there's
been discussion about how well JKR has managed to flesh-out and portray her
female characters in HP, and I wonder if that contributes to less bulk of f/f
being written than m/m, although I agree that there's simply an astonishing
number of pairings being played with in HP, both m/m and f/f.

The predominance of women in HP fanfiction is pretty typical. Traditionally,
it's been women who have subverted media products and re-written them to
reflect their own experiences and desires, doing it through the male
characters we've been given, in the case of slash. It's a "feminization" of
texts that have by and large been produced by and targeted to (heterosexual)
(white) males. The demographic TV and movie producers usually want is male,
18-34. There's been discussion about whether HP itself would have appealed to
boys if Harry had been Harriette, or even if JKR had used her name instead of
her intials. Meanwhile, female fans searched for ways to put ourselves in
there. I read one academic essay (Joanna Russ, I think, although I can't find
it now, argh!) that theorized Spock was a viewpoint character for many female
Trek fans because of his alieness from the dominant paradigm. There have also
been some slash writers who conceived of characters as queer and wrote with
that assumption, although not the majority. But certainly canon-queer
characters have been absent or heavily cloaked in modern media, and I do think
there's a hunger to see them.

It used to be that people were running around throwing out statistics like "90
percent straight women" when talking about slash, but I'd question that now,
because I think there's an increasing number of women writing slash who
identify as bisexual. But certainly a large percentage are still heterosexual.
What's the appeal? I think it's as unique as the individual. On the most
basic, gut level, I think some of us are just wired this way. Why do I like
slash? I just do. <g> Why do I like chocolate ice cream? Why are any of us
turned on by what turns us on? When I step back and look at it, sure it can be
kind of amusing. I adore Remus Lupin. I adore Sirius Black. It's kind of
self-defeating, isn't it, to pair them off in my fantasies? Although it
ensures that if *I* can't have them, no other woman is going to get her hands
on them either. There's a certain amount of selfishness and proprietariness on
my part when I read about a female character with Black and go "No, no, no,
no, no!"

I think to an extent we're also reading these relationships in the way we've
been taught to read relationships, we're just ignoring gender boundaries. In
antagonistic pairings like Ron/Draco or Harry/Draco we're extrapolating from
the dynamic that told us, when we were 6, that the guy who pulled our pigtails
did it because he liked us. In buddy pairings like Ron/Harry, we've been
taught that our lovers should be our friends, so why shouldn't the people who
are our true friends become our lovers - regardless of what sex they are?
Slash looks at bonds between men as a spectrum where homosociality blurs into
homosexuality. I think, in some sense, there's a drive for emotional monogamy
in slash, the feeling that the person you have your primary emotional bond
with (love or hate) should be the person you have your relationship with. And
we tend to see characters putting their emotional investment into their
friendships much, much more than we see them putting investment into other
relationships. Source material itself traditionally has drawn male
relationships much more strongly than it shows outside romantic relationships.
And why would I want to see my hero saddled with a cardboard cutout when he
can be with someone he has a strong, sometimes exclusive bond with?

I do think slash tends to be an innately feminist act. You're going against
common conceptions of how men are "supposed" to act in romantic/sexual
situations. You're placing them in a sexual dynamic that goes against what our
culture has taught us. That makes slash subversive in the same way that saying
"I have a right to be a sexual person" is subversive for women (and for gay
men) who are shaking off traditional sexual constraints. M/m slash also
removes women from the erotic gaze. Traditionally, women have been the objects
of desire, they're the ones who have been looked at, they're the sexual
commodity. Slash is not designed for the pleasure of heterosexual men, it's
designed for me. I'm not the object of desire, and I'm not subconsciously
comparing myself to a woman who is presented in the erotic scenario. It's also
is a lot more comfortable for me when I start moving into sexual waters that
are non-mainstream. If I'm dealing with power issues, I don't want some back
part of my brain worrying that NOW is going to come yank my card-carrying
feminist card, I don't want to worry about how my characters are re-enacting
gender roles. I find that removing the gender variable is a concern for me. It
frees me to examine all the other issues - including the remaining power
dynamics - that go into a relationship. I can focus on all the other stuff. 

And now we're going to go dark - warning, mature subject matter ahead.

Slash stories can romanticize men, but there's also plenty of slash that deals
with darker sexuality, with obsession and violence, Rita mentioned rape, and I
think it's because it gives some women the distance to examine their feelings
about those issues when there's not the immediate identification of seeing
them played out through female bodies. It also gives them the chance to
examine both sides of the equation. I've seen what I consider a shocking
amount of rapefic come across the harrypotterslash list (which is different
from hpslash), particularly given the general age over there. At times I've
rolled my eyes and wondered why poor Remus can't seem to step outside the
Gryffindor common room without someone assaulting him. And if it's not Lupin,
it's Draco. Good lord, the boy has been gang-raped and tortured and mutilated
... although with Draco, I think they're whumping him to try to engage the
reader's sympathy, given he's not a particularly sympathetic character. If we
can beat him up enough, maybe everyone will feel sorry for him. Anyway, why
are teenaged girls - some of them barely into their teens - turning out
rapefic? I'm not sure how many of those writers have a good theoretical handle
on rape and its aftermath, and I might wish they'd handle the issue more
responsibly, but they're certainly exploring issues of aggression and power,
not only as victim but *as aggressor*, as possessor, when girls have
traditionally been taught to squash aggression in themselves. Sex is
undeniably one weapon of aggression, it's used to threaten other people all
the time.

On "femming" characters, Simon wrote:
>>Yeah, this really happens to Draco, so much that he is mistakable for
Hermione in some pics made by the afflicted :-) I like my objects to be proper
men, not effeminate nancies (j/k).>>

You and me both. One of the highest praises I can give a slash writer is "her
characters act like guys." I just adored one of Khirsah's Dean/Seamus stories
where she had Seamus do something so gross as to drool on his pillow while he
was asleep - none of those pretty boys would ever do something like that. I
keep threatening to write a story where Remus has bedhead and scabby elbows
from roughhousing and whacks Sirius in the back of the head for being a
smartass instead of blushing demurely and wins the belching contest the
Marauders have ... and Sirius still loves him, imagine that. Then I want to
give Draco smelly socks. See, now I'm just going overboard. But there's all
these delicate pretty boys running around, and I'm thinking ... uh, where are
the men? The solid, furry, musky, calloused-hands, strong-thighed *men*?
Where, where, where? I mean, can you really be a delicate flower and stay on
your broom during a Quidditch match in a thunderstorm? I ask you ...

Uhhhhhh ..... I just had a brain-freeze, imagining Ron feeling the broom
callouses on Draco's fingers against his skin. Give me a minute, I have to
recover. I also have to write that down, that's going into the story I'm
working on.

>>I'd have to say I'm more attracted to buddy pairings. Somewhat like Ebony
(hope I have the right person) here on this list said referring to He/Ro, I
just can't imagine a relationship built on antagonism and fights.>>

I think the buddy/antagonistic distinction could fall under the calm/volatile
dynamic that was discussed, although I'm partial to a recent distinction made
by Hth - she calls the two camps Slash Angels and Demon Lovers. I tend to be a
Demon Lover although I can sometimes be lulled into a Slash Angel mindset. But
generally I'm a drama queen and an angst queen, I like darkness and twistiness
and damaged characters and unhealthy relationships, and that's never safe for
the characters. I'm very much into the high-drama aspect of I hate you, I
don't want to love you, I despise you, why can't I help myself being attracted
to you? Love and rage and need and desire and fear twisted around each other
and fueling each other? I'm so there. It's certainly *not* a dynamic I'd want
to act out in real life, but I crave it in my fanfiction.

>>Perhaps I'd better take up the R/Ha fort? (why fort rather than ship?)>>

Because I'm nautically illiterate and would probably get seasick anyway. <g>
Although I'm not averse to dabbling my toes in the water with Jen in the Slash
Lagoon. I tend to think of "shipping" as a hetfic phenomenon. The way I break
down fanfiction is into gen, not dealing with relationships; het, with a
subset of non-canon het relationships which is "shipping;" and queer, with a
subset of non-canon queer relationships which is "slash." I'm probably using
"ship" incorrectly, but I've never identified myself as a "shipper," just as a
slasher. 

Alexa


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