Tuesday, July 11, 2006

I'm not a homophobe, I just don't get slashfic

After posting the scariest link to a slash fanfic that had Keidra running for the brain bleach, we got into a discussion regarding slash fiction.

"What's wrong with slash fic?" Keidra asked me.

It was hard for me to answer. I don't consider myself a homophobe. I'm a firm believer that gays should be allowed to marry, adopt and do everything else that us hetero people can. Just because I'm not into gay porn doesn't mean that I'm thinking that homosexuals shouldn't have equal rights.

Actually, I'm not really into porn. It's kinda scary looking -- like a nature special gone horribly, horribly wrong.

So yeah, slashfic. I think my objection to it slashfic is more that most that I've attempted to read (before fleeing for other areas of the Internet) is that most of the stories assign "girly" characteristics to men.

For example, no man giggles -- unless they're the creepy kind of guy with the clammy hands who can't leave you alone, even though you've politely hinted that you're not interested. But it pops up all the time in bad slashfic.

Not many men I know blush. I've made my husband's eyebrows shoot up into his hairline with a bawdy comment or two. But it also pops up in bad slashfic.

Here's the thing -- I don't think that two men together results in one man becoming a woman and showing emotions in the same way that a woman does.

Perhaps the one story of two men in love that seemed the most realistic and affecting to me was Brokeback Mountain because I could picture people acting and feeling that way. That seemed more realistic than a sigh, a blush or a giggle out of, oh say, Richard Sharpe.

1 comment:

K. said...

I dunno. Annie Prolx' Brokeback Mountain short story reads pretty much like unusally well-written slash fanfiction to me. To each his/her own, I say.