Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

Fanfic and Orientation

Statistical analysis shows that queer orientations are heavily represented among people involved in slash (same-sex) fanworks.  I'm not surprised.  I also hypothesize that fanfic has helped the gay rights movement by making literature in which queer behavior is not unthinkable, but rather adorable.  People get used to it, and that's progress.  Similarly original material featuring queer relationships is helpful, and I suspect that again a lot of folks into original queer lit are themselves some flavor of queer -- plus some straight allies who may be heterosexual but bi-reading-romantic.
Tags: fantasy, gender studies, news, science fiction
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  • 11 comments
johnpalmer

johnpalmer

January 11 2014, 19:41:13 UTC 7 years ago

I remember seeing a lovely rant about how if you like slash, you damn well better support same sex marriage and any other gay civil rights issue, people are not zoo animals clowned up for your amusement, and so forth. I wouldn't be surprised if it did help.

I also remember Hugh Laurie in an interview giving some fodder for slashficcers about House - I mean, I don't know if he was intentionally doing it, but that's how it came across to me, meaning I think he recognized the value to the entertainment industry. (Or maybe he just likes reading House/Wilson stories.)
ysabetwordsmith

Thoughts

ysabetwordsmith

January 11 2014, 20:10:51 UTC 7 years ago

>> I remember seeing a lovely rant about how if you like slash, you damn well better support same sex marriage and any other gay civil rights issue, people are not zoo animals clowned up for your amusement, and so forth. I wouldn't be surprised if it did help. <<

I agree. My stance on writing outside your own categories is:
1) Writing only about your own categories is erasure and boring.
2) Do your homework so you don't botch the details.
3) Always give back to the community whose inspiration you use. That can be a percentage of your profits, your support on political matters, volunteering on projects that benefit them, whatever.

>> I also remember Hugh Laurie in an interview giving some fodder for slashficcers about House - I mean, I don't know if he was intentionally doing it, but that's how it came across to me, meaning I think he recognized the value to the entertainment industry. (Or maybe he just likes reading House/Wilson stories.) <<

Some creative people just enjoy feeding the fen.

Me, I like to use fanfic to find out what people really really love reading. A lot of fanfic is fixit material for things that people find insufficiently satisfying in mainstream entertainment. It's not hard to hack that and identify things that will serve as fanmagnets to load into a canon. So that's one reason my original writing includes same-sex relationships, free love, nonsexual touch, comfort care, mindful problem-solving, enemies resolving their differences, etc. I've set up some entire projects explicitly to facilitate things like crossovers (Schrodinger's Heroes) or racebending (The Blueshift Troupers).