Yes, *again*

So I was directed to Naomi Chana's blog by Sarah, who knows how much I get off on this particular topic. Scroll down a bit (and reload, and try following a link and hitting the back button, and put your glasses on because that print is *small*), and you'll find an interesting little essay on misogyny, the role of the woman in the transference of cultural capital, self-ghettoization and so forth.

Unsurprisingly, I disagree. There's something... hmm. Lemme try to approach this from something that may or may not be tangential. (We'll see once I get to the end. *snerk* It's an adventure!) So, basically, I've been thinking on The Lana Thing, and how intelligent, broad-minded, woman-friendly slashers like Livia (see her March 7) entry are twisting themselves into *knots* because... Jiminy Christmas, there's no *there* there. And we've tried, God knows we've tried, to not be like Them.

You know -- *Them*. Those slashers who may or may not actually *be* misogynistic, but habitually slam female characters, *any and all* female characters, that show signs of getting in the way of Our Boys' True Love.

Nobody with a brain and a consciousness of their own talent as a writer wants to be like that. Or, Jesus, *seen* that way. No, I'm not talking about the people who just don't write about female characters, or the ones who are ready, willing, and able to defend their loathing of the characters with canonical examples and the like. That's just fine. That's all good, yeah? Yeah.

I'm talking about the kind of people who, upon hearing the *rumor* that Lex would have an *ex*-girlfriend show up for a *limited* run of episodes immediately started frothing at the mouth and calling the -- then entirely theoretical -- character six kinds of bitch, ho, and so on. I mean, the vilification was legendary. And I was disgusted, and I got on my high horse and snarked in various forums and felt the better for it. Because, you know, we *cool* kids were above that kind of thing.

We understood that we'd never get Clark/Lex True Love Forever onscreen. We reveled in the possibilities the introduction of such a character could create. We speculated, we analyzed, we wrote reams of pretty darned good fiction. We did... well. Isn't that what we're "supposed" to do? In the hierarchy of fannish morality, what cooler group can there be than those people who, while they may not have the remotest interest in having het in their slash, are still willing to entertain the plottish possibilities such unwanted canon could create?

And I wonder. I mean, this is obviously all opinion, and I want to reiterate my huge respect for Cara Chapel, who was so damned honest it *hurt*, but... yeah. I *do* feel all high and mighty about my fictional polyamory. For whatever that says about me, for however irrational that belief may be, I fucking well gloat and strut over my ability to write and enjoy all sorts of pairings. Sure, it's all aesthetics, but... hey. I dig me. I dig *this* about me.

So anyway, faced with week after week of boring, insipid, self-obsessed, insensitive Lana portrayals... a lot of us are giving the hell up. And I find it fascinating that we can't do it without shame, without some amount of excusing ourselves. And Lord knows, I'm not separating myself from the lot. God, the *soul* searching I've done over my near-murderous loathing of Lana. The angst and pain and suffering I've put myself through to do my best to portray her in a favorable light whenever she pops up in one of my stories.

And... I'm sick of it. I'm *sick* of it. I'd *never* do this to myself if Lana was a male character, you know? I'd have no problem whatsoever with erasing the hypothetical male from my fictional landscape and going *on* with my life, but no.

Nope, no. Can't do that with Lana because she's a *girl*.

Can't be misogynistic.

It's bullshit. It really is.

I'll say this... yes, there are slash stories that I consider to be misogynistic. Yes, there are slashers who I honestly believe are, themselves, misogynists. But the idea that any story without female characters present, or any story that presents a female character in a negative and/or limited role is automatically misogynist is bullshit. Always has been. Always will be.

The idea that the slash community is some sort of self-inflicted ghetto? The same. Yes, there are plenty of people who see no need to wander outside of the various sub-genres and sub-communities of slashland. Yes, there are plenty of people who are vehement about liking it *just that way*. Does that mean that the community itself is flawed in some basic, woman-loathing way? No. No. *No*.

Jesus. It's just another way of looking at so-called "cliques." Just because I want to hang out with my friends at only *that* bar is no reason to assume that we hate and fear that bar across the street.

In the end, it's all about taste. Just as I'm completely irrational to think I'm cooler than the rest of y'all for my literary polyamory, so is it completely irrational for me, or anyone else, to believe that people who don't have women in their fiction are self-ghettoizing, self-loathing misogynists.

Whew. Yeah. There.
4:25 AM : link :

Porn!

Good for what ails you, eh? Right? Eh?

This Part, now available at a Level Three Reading Room near you!
4:42 AM : link :

Update!

Updated Teland with new recs, a bunch of new and semi-new stories, new covers, and new random art.

Fandoms represented in this update: Smallville, BtVS, AtS, Ravenous, The Usual Suspects, Brimstone.

Het and slash.

And -- some of the slash is even between legal adults!

Check check it, yo.
3:52 AM : link :

An end to denial

Somehow I believed that if I just didn't add *all* the different blogs I read to my sidebar, I would actually stop reading them and do stuff like answering my truly shameful amount of e-mail and updating my pages. Ha. HA.

Well.

I give up. (mostly)
12:11 AM : link :

It's done, it's over, thank God

Past Grief.

Read if you wanna. Tell me alllll about it.
3:00 AM : link :