In conclusion, I like slash.

[schmerica]

(This entry is mostly about boyslash, and not so much femslash or het, which I've read less and not noticed the issues as much.)

A conversation over in kalpurna's journal about power dynamics and ass-fucking here -- while pretty interesting on its own! -- has sent my thoughts on a vaguely related tangent. If you've talked to me on AIM when I've been in a babbling about fanfiction mood, you might have heard me talk about the sort of fetishization of equality that seems to inform a lot of people's experience with slash.

(Which can be relatively subtle, and as just a sort of "fixing" of what's perceived as inequalities in canon, but can also in some cases kind of freak me out when it goes to the point of trying to make up pretty much every single difference between the people to somehow make an exactly level playing field, with neither better or higher or greater than the other, and which often goes beyond anything about the actual characters.)

So. In Kalpurna's entry, she mentions that the whole conception of top and bottom as really fixed positions written into everything about the relationship can often be with really disturbing overtones. Which I think a lot of us would totally agree with! Sexual position does not equal the power dynamics in a relationship; the person being penetrated isn't necessarily inferior or submissive. (Like, hi, see the vast majority of heterosexual relationships; in couples that don't do pegging, the woman might also be the one getting penetrated, but that doesn't define the relationship as the woman being powerless and the man being totally in charge of everything.)

Sex is part of character, like anything else. But it doesn't define *everything* in someone's life, and it's not a direct correlation with other things.

So, okay. On the one hand, it seems like a lot of boyslash fandom reacts to that false top/bottom fixed dichotomy in the same way, which is ... trading off. It gets to the point where the reader expects and is really disappointed in a story if they don't get both the boys pitching and both catching (and to a certain degree, both receiving and giving oral sex, but not as much). I've seen on several occasions people name one of the awesome things about their fandoms that the boys do always switch off, because they're just so equal and awesome that way.

And I totally get where that drive comes from, but I guess what confuses me is why the other option in responding to the false generalizations is so much less common -- almost taboo, it seems sometimes. Because if we mostly agree that being the receiving partner in anal sex doesn't make you the "woman" or the "sub" or the weaker person, then doesn't it follow that it's still true even if you always prefer to be the receiving partner? It's totally possible to write a relationship where one guy is always pitching and one is always catching without that becoming the false power issues Kalpurna talks about in her entry. (I've read a few really good stories that just feature a guy who doesn't like to top -- mosca's ice skating RPS comes to mind.) But sometimes it seems like a kind of unspoken rule that the "sharing" I mentioned above has to occur.

I don't know; in some ways I think the latter type of relationship might be more subversive in some ways than the taking-turns-type model. If taking turns is a necessity in the relationship to achieve equality and comfort, then we're still in an environment where sex does define the power, and the equality is only coming from both guys taking the inferior position. (Also, het girls? You're screwed forever by biology. Sucks to be you!)

But if the power dynamics of a relationship can still be maintained through a whole continuum of sex -- everywhere from the taking-turns all the way to guy-who-likes-to-fuck-always/guy-who-always-likes-to-be-fucked -- than that seems to me to be saying much more of a "fuck no" to the entire patriarchal concept of worthless-submissive-inferior-powerless-penetrated-object and powerful-virile-superior-dominant-penetrator-subject.

(...Of course, obviously all of this is complicated by the fact that our characters don't necessarily share any like my/your/our concepts of sexual politics, especially when from a different age, generation or political stance. They're ornery that way.)

So, honestly, if Ray Kowalski spend 25 years fucking Stella and she still totally wore the pants in their relationship, who's to say Fraser couldn't do the same thing without ever doing the penetrating?

Hi, I just wrote yet another essay about reading about boys having sex for our entertainment. You would think I was some sort of geek or something.

Comments

[mosca.livejournal.com]

Hey, awesome post that I think is right on in every way, and I'm not just saying that because you namechecked me. :) I'm used to the old-school fandom trope where the same guy is always always on the bottom and his asshole is pretty much a mangina, but now that you point it out, fandom has shifted/is shifting to the equally disastrous "they are completely equal in all things" cliche.

Since you brought up "Hearts Beat Time Out" (which is the only one of my skating fics that makes a point of establishing a character as a full-time bottom), I really was trying to draw attention to how often Johnny was being penetrated but totally in control of the sex act. Like, "Here's the position I want you to be in when you fuck me, and here's how I want you to do it." Topping from the bottom.

In femslash, a lot of writers (fail to) deal with the penetration = domination fallacy by avoiding images of penetration altogether. I've actually gotten nastygrams about f/f stories that employed strap-ons or sex toys. And there's a lot less digital penetration in fic than, well, in life, and what there is often downplays the penetrative aspects, as hard as that is to imagine in a scene where one woman has most of her hand inside another's vagina. Take the fear of inequality that we see in m/m fic, multiply it by fifty, and that's the fear of inequality that I see in femslash.

[callmesandy.livejournal.com]

I was reading along about power issues and I was thinking, "what about figure skaters ..." and then pearl_o mentioned it right there and I was like, hahahahaha.

So, um, yay! all around for smart people I know.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Take the fear of inequality that we see in m/m fic, multiply it by fifty, and that's the fear of inequality that I see in femslash.

Oh, that's totally fascinating; I hadn't realized that was the case, but it does make a lot of sense.

Since you brought up "Hearts Beat Time Out" (which is the only one of my skating fics that makes a point of establishing a character as a full-time bottom), I really was trying to draw attention to how often Johnny was being penetrated but totally in control of the sex act. Like, "Here's the position I want you to be in when you fuck me, and here's how I want you to do it." Topping from the bottom.

*nods* And I definitely think that was effective in that story. And on another tangent, I wonder if one of the things I find so interesting about reading your skating RPS is that you really do get to work in a story where the lead is, canonically/in-real-footage, very much on the fey and fabulous side. So you're playing with a whole different idea of masculinity than the "manly man!!!" straight boys media fandom slash I'm used to, where the "feminization" curse can be equally applied to either feyness *or* really bizarre submissive characterization.

[mosca.livejournal.com]

Yeah, several of my protagonists fall on the fey side, and you can't really be a figure skater and project a manly image -- it's a whole different spectrum of masculinity, ranging from totally androgynous to sensitively masculine artist. But the other side of the coin is, in other respects, they're probably more masculine than most of the men being written about in other fandoms: they're athletes with ripped, muscular bodies, and they're incredibly competitive and aggressive.

[somewhatdeluded.livejournal.com]

It's interesting that you mention the issue of failing to deal with penetration in femmeslash, because that bugs me, too--as does the flip side, namely, writing m/m slash where every sexual encounter, every time, must end with someone with his cock up the other guy's ass. Every now and again I'll come across a sex scene where two guys are 69ing and I'll be all, "All riiiiiight" and then they'll, like, stop, and switch so that one of them can fuck the other. Which is like, okay, well, hey! I like buttsex! But especially if the same thing happens multiple times in one fic, it gets kind of perplexing. Like, what? Where the heck did that author find two guys who don't want to come from oral?

From my POV, it isn't like there's a line of sexually satisfying acts, with penetration all the way down at the "FUN!" end. Sometimes, two guys can 69 and come in each other's mouths and then hey! Good times! Sometimes, that's a fun date night! Similarly, sure, two girls can 69 each other until they're blue in the face, but sometimes maybe they like some fisting, too! There are all kinds of fun ways to get off, no matter the gender configuration of the participants. Sex isn't hockey. Holes are not goals.

The thing that you mention with femmeslash bugs me with het, too, because damn it all, lots of people, of both genders, really like being penetrated. And so hey! Let that chick over there stick two fingers up her boy's butt! Let these two chicks over here do it with dildos! Let freedom ring!

And I'm not just saying that because I'm writing het pegging fic in another window right now. *whistles innocently*

[mosca.livejournal.com]

Seriously. There's an enormous spectrum to sex, but we don't see most of it represented in fic. Handjobs? Rimming? Phone sex? Anal penetration of women? Hi. And who says they both have to get off at once? Also, there are some aspects of technique that are very common in my experience but seldom depicted in slash: I can think of, like, two stories in which someone gives a blow job while fingering the guy's ass, and no equivalent cunnilingus scenes.

And m/f pegging is, of course, awesome.

[ex_mrs260625]

Every now and again I'll come across a sex scene where two guys are 69ing and I'll be all, "All riiiiiight" and then they'll, like, stop, and switch so that one of them can fuck the other.

I hate that. Seriously. Oral is not just something people do on the way to "real" sex. It is glorious and fun and satisfying in its own right.

Unless the guy has been eating asparagus. Then 50% of partners would probably not want him to come from oral. Because even if you spit, eww.

[wemblee.livejournal.com]

Sex isn't hockey. Holes are not goals. [...] And so hey! Let that chick over there stick two fingers up her boy's butt! Let these two chicks over here do it with dildos! Let freedom ring!

I... Please marry me. Or put those sentences on bumper stickers. Heee.

[carla-scribbles.livejournal.com]

Take the fear of inequality that we see in m/m fic, multiply it by fifty, and that's the fear of inequality that I see in femslash.

Huh. Do you think so? I don't notice that so much -- of course, I've been reading mostly BSG femslash, where we LOVE our frakked-up power dynamics and our top!Roslin, so my sample set is probably incredibly biased.

[mosca.livejournal.com]

From what I know of BSG fandom, that's absolutely true. But from what I've seen -- in my own fandoms and in things like femslash porn battles and the femslash_today queue, BSG is the exception rather than the rule.

[carla-scribbles.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, yes -- you mean the Willow/Tara Strikes Back thing, where all girl-on-girl action MUST be soft and idealized and nice, because after all we're so much more sensitive than those icky boys?

Yeah. No. Hate that. It's almost never right for the characters, and it's about as erotic as a tour of the home furnishing section at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. No, I totally see your point there.

*sighhhhhh* And once again, despite the batshit Kara/Lee shippers, I am reminded of why I LOVE MY SHOW.

[hobbledehoy.livejournal.com]

auggh. i love willow/tara, but i hate willow and tara slash. for that reason.

poor girls. things must get so lonely in their imaginary bedrooms. the one fic i wrote was of tara doing drag and fucking willow, and hot damn did i get flaaaaamed.

[carla-scribbles.livejournal.com]

Dude. Where is this fic? I think I have to read it.

[hobbledehoy.livejournal.com]

i think it's somewhere in the ether, thank goodness. i was little. bad writing, but good sex. :D