I didn't comment on the thread, but while I think the person who took you to task for what you recced was an idiot (if the mods said it was cool, then it was cool, jeez louise! Someone had a stick up their ass), I admit to being rubbed really the wrong way by what you said about the femslash story you recced. And while I understand that you weren't being as clear as you like, I still think that when you say something like that, it becomes open comment for others to think about and question your privilege. Because my first reaction was "oh, god, she's a woman and she thinks all femslash is squicky but het is okay, I am so disgusted by that" and while that's unfair, I think part of what we *do* in fandom is have discussions about these things if it's brought into our fandom space, which is what you did in your comment. I do, I do understand that you probably didn't mean any of that, but it's very difficult for others to not want to engage with that.
The whofandom, by the way, has a nice amount of femslash that covers lots of genres and pairings, and I'd encourage you to give it a chance; I think what might have also rubbed people wrong was the way you seemed to normatize one (het) pairing and classify others as non-canon, when to multi-shippers and many fans, the one (het) pairing you normatize isn't actually canon, so many of these other pairings are just as potentially canonical as the one you favour (I thought Rose had amazing chemistry with a lot of the girls she met on her travels, for instance!) And when your comment seemed to marginalize all slash and femslash in favour of the het pairing, and only describe squicky language as belonging to those two genres (since there's much less explicit femslash than explicit het out there, I actually find the ratio of "oh god, no" way better in favour of femslash, especially since it rarely contains throbbing manhoods and the like), it starts to feel really problematic, and I don't blame people for wanting to express that (as I am here, obviously). I don't know if working through your privilege in public is a fandom requirement, but I do think that it's easier to avoid having to do that if some potentially ugly opinions aren't held out on display. I know I sympathize with ionlylurkhere, as you didn't exactly sell me on why her story was good, only why it was less-worse.
Sorry to intrude like this, but I spent a lot of time thinking about this and decided I'd feel better if I just said it, rather than meanly thinking it behind your back, or something. I don't know.
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ninetydegrees
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on 2009-05-04 03:21 am (UTC)The whofandom, by the way, has a nice amount of femslash that covers lots of genres and pairings, and I'd encourage you to give it a chance; I think what might have also rubbed people wrong was the way you seemed to normatize one (het) pairing and classify others as non-canon, when to multi-shippers and many fans, the one (het) pairing you normatize isn't actually canon, so many of these other pairings are just as potentially canonical as the one you favour (I thought Rose had amazing chemistry with a lot of the girls she met on her travels, for instance!) And when your comment seemed to marginalize all slash and femslash in favour of the het pairing, and only describe squicky language as belonging to those two genres (since there's much less explicit femslash than explicit het out there, I actually find the ratio of "oh god, no" way better in favour of femslash, especially since it rarely contains throbbing manhoods and the like), it starts to feel really problematic, and I don't blame people for wanting to express that (as I am here, obviously). I don't know if working through your privilege in public is a fandom requirement, but I do think that it's easier to avoid having to do that if some potentially ugly opinions aren't held out on display. I know I sympathize with
Sorry to intrude like this, but I spent a lot of time thinking about this and decided I'd feel better if I just said it, rather than meanly thinking it behind your back, or something. I don't know.