ps, please write me more fic

[schmerica]

Last night I was thinking about this conversation brooklinegirl and I had a couple months ago -- it basically consisted of rambling on and on, as we are wont to do, this time all about Fraser and the idea of these idealized Victorian manly friendship-type things. Blah, blah, blah, tracey and I are dorks, but this afternoon I've been pondering the differences between two different kinds of set-up for slash stories. I'm trying to think of the right way to phrase what I'm thinking about, but I guess it's sort of a difference between stories where the emotional and sexual components are really heavily intertwined (Ray is attracted to Fraser, Ray loves Fraser, Ray wants to have sex with Fraser, all wound together) and those stories where the components don't quite go together in the same way. I'm thinking of stories where that emotional connection is just as strong and intense, but it isn't formulated by the characters in a romantic or sexual way, at least to begin with. Ray needs Fraser and loves Fraser, can't live without Fraser in his life, he's willing to move up to the arctic circle or who knows where -- but it's not the same thing, in his mind, as wanting Fraser to be his boyfriend.

That on its own would just be preslash or smarm, though, I suppose, so -- I'm trying to think over the examples of this subgenre that have struck me, and it seems like there are two different ways the sexual component enters the equation: either it's something gradual, slow, teensy weensy steps that the characters don't actually notice until it arrives, or it's something more of the case of the character thinking it up themselves, almost as a way to make sense of the emotional connection -- that okay, if I have this need, this love, this want, it's going to have to be sexual eventually -- or even, occasionally, for me to get what I need emotionally from this person, they deserve to be getting sex in return.

I don't know, I'm thinking of Crys's True North, Lale's Third (time is the charm, or so someone told Ray once) and Look Way Up to the Sky, maybe Ces's Flying Blind, a lot of astolat's stuff (none of which is dS, of course), a lot of other ones I can't think of names for right now. It's not the same thing as We're Not Gay, We Just Love Each Other, but I wonder if the differences in the emphasis on the relationship makes it ... hmm, maybe a purer kind of slash in some ways? I don't think I've ever actually written anything I'd put in that category, but it's definitely interesting to consider.

I always end these sorts of entries with the realization that I haven't really had a thesis statement.

Comments

[arallara.livejournal.com]

There was a really interesting conversation related to this on the old dS_Asylum mailing list a few years ago. We were talking about models of sexuality in slash stories in general, and we were talking about whether a representation where the guys "aren't gay, they just love each other" is homophobic. Some fans were arguing that they saw that relationship/sexuality model as just one "flavor" among the whole broad spectrum of possibilities in the entire body of dS fiction. Another fan who had been around fandom for decades, however, brought up the way slash fandom has changed, so that model may now be just one possibility among many different representations, but it used to be THE dominant model for slash stories, which was partly due to the fans' discomfort with or ignorance about homosexuality. So, for her, those stories still read as homophobic, even though they are in no way the dominant model in fandom any longer. It was an interesting historical perspective on slash.

I think the Victorian "passionate male friendship" thing you mentioned is actually interestingly appropriate in dS fandom specifically, though, because of the way they play with Fraser's characterization on the show itself, referencing an "old fashioned" (and in many ways specifically Victorian) kind of masculinity.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

I think the Victorian "passionate male friendship" thing you mentioned is actually interestingly appropriate in dS fandom specifically, though, because of the way they play with Fraser's characterization on the show itself, referencing an "old fashioned" (and in many ways specifically Victorian) kind of masculinity.

Brooklinegirl and I have this whole speculation that I mention here, where we theorize Fraser as a youth really imprinting on this certain sort of relationship (and possibly imprinting even with the beginning of his queerness, without even realizing he was doing so) -- it was part of this whole larger theory we were discussing on how he's shaped by books to this really intense degree, and also stuff about how he's shaped by solitude, which as a kid, probably would make those intense, all-consuming ideas of relationships that much more fetishized by him.

Um, this makes more sense when you read the hours of chat we have on it, I suppose.

[mondschein1.livejournal.com]

*blinks*

(A)No. NO MORE PLOT BUNNIES. I have no more room to put them and no more time to feed them with. *whimpers*

(B)I refuse to write a Mary Sue. Even if Fraser IS the Mary Sue.

Uh, in conclusion -- you are intriguing me. And it makes perfect sense to me, really, which is what I was commenting for in the first place. Though you are really creeping me out with the describing-me-to-a-T-while-meaning-to-describe-Fraser thing, there.

[arallara.livejournal.com]

No, no--you make sense! *g*

and possibly imprinting even with the beginning of his queerness, without even realizing he was doing so

Absolutely! And he wouldn't necessarily know how to conceptualize whatever feelings he has for people (like, say, childhood best friends with whom he was in a 3-person scout troop? *g*) in terms of sexuality at all. I love that he tells that story to Bruce Spender in that particular episode, which is so completely QUEER, and which subtextually plays with that slippage between "brotherly" love and sexual love.

[damned-colonial.livejournal.com]

Yup, I agree 100% with arallara's second para there. It's one of the things that drew me to Due South, when most of my other fandoms are historical ones -- Benton Fraser is just such a 19th century sort of man, and his sense of honour and loyalty and, yes, the ways he shows affection certainly feel that way to me.

[aukestrel.livejournal.com]

And then you have the part of slash that works so well with due South (to me, I mean) in another way, which is that so much of homosexual relationships are 'build as you go.' There is no white picket fence or Donna Reed, just two guys trying to figure out if, and how, they are meant to be together.

I think that's one reason I love due South so much because it's Fraser's journey, it's Ray Vecchio's journey, and it's Ray Kowalski's journey. Some part of each journey is taken together and some part is taken separately, but all three grow and change as characters, and so do their relationships. I think Vecchio, for instance, was forced to redefine his concept of friendship after meeting Fraser. Fraser, for his part, was forced to admit a friend to his life - wow. That could be construed as quite a leap for him. And in admitting that the world wouldn't fall apart if he had a friend, he had come that much further along the path when Kowalski came along, although with the world falling apart around him after Victoria, you can argue that his inclination would have been more of the Victorian worship from afar re: Ray Kowalski than the "jump into bed" modern male of the 90s. *g*

I've also been spending a lot of time reading and thinking about gay cowboys, and, sadly, I am not (yet) talking about Brokeback Mountain, but Magnificent 7. There, also, you have deep friendships and very male-centred and/or male-only societies, particularly in the Old West, and no real definitions for "gay" or "straight" or whatever. How would a man in 1870 define his sexual, or even emotional, attraction to another man? It's the same question, really, as in 1990, but with much different social and cultural restrictions.

At any rate, I think the "make it up as you go along" model can be reflected in the "not gay, we just love each other" type of story. How *do* you define your relationship when it is outside all, or most of, the cultural norms? How do you write a relationship? How do you put yourself in their heads to write that relationship? That's part of the fascination of slash, I guess, for me.

[akite.livejournal.com]

I guess I think more in the mode of "they are guys, guys think with their dicks", yes even Fraser does, at times. I can't see either of them (meaning RayK and Fraser) being in a long term, friendship only relationship. I know men. Or at least, I think I do. I spent 6 years in the military, which even today, is a male orientated micro-society. A lot of my world view on men stems from this. I do appreciate the building, make it up as you go along, type stories because really, RayK and Fraser in canon seem straight or at a stretch bisexual.

[miriam-heddy.livejournal.com]

There's a lot of Starsky and Hutch slash of the intense love coming first and sex coming later, almost as an inevitability rather than the driving focus. And not all of it is smarm, either.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Interesting! Is that mostly in the older stuff, or are people in that fandom still writing those themes, do you know?