Queering Queer:
A Theory
by joudama
So, here's the shit I think of when I'm procrastinating doing my insane amount
of Japanese homework.
Slash.
No, no, hear me out. I'm not saying I turn into a big drooling, porn-seeking
idiot or something, I mean, I start doing what I do best. Overthinking. As in.
It's been bugging me for awhile when people that that slash isn't representational
of a gay male lifestyle. I have one thing to say to that:
Well, *DUH*.
Slash is not about setting up a gay lifestyle for characters, although perhaps,
for some it is. It's not about that, it's about queering the characters. Now,
before you get all googly-eyed and yelling, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, back up
there, buddy!" I'll break it down. By queering the characters, I don't
mean turning them gay, I mean taking them outside of the norm by fetishizing
them. There's a real difference, I think. If you turn the characters gay, then
you do open up the issue of lifestyle. But when you fetishize them, then you
are not making them into a lifestyle or opening yourself up to the pressures
of the reality of a lifestyle. No, because fetishization is not about reality,
it's about the two things--about turning things into a fantasy by hyper-realizing
them, and then about fulfilling that fantasy of hyper-reality. And by "reality,"
I don't mean reality as we perceive in our day-to-day life, but in the sense
of "realization," or of making things real to us within the construction
that we are construing them in--in the sense of making a fantasy feel real,
not actually making a reality the fantasy. We don't want the reality, we want
the fetish. We want the fetish of queer, not the actual queerness and all that
it entails per se.
Is it wrong to fetishize a lifestyle? And even if it is, can you stop it? After
all, people fetishize everything. Go on the web, and you see people's fetishes
of the Other. There are fetishes of the Big Black Dick, of the Horny Teen Slut,
of the Me-So-Horny Asian Ho, of everything. No fool would ever argue that the
Two Girl Action! Hot-N-Horny Lesbos Get It ON! should even *begin* to actually
reflect the lifestyles and sexuality of lesbians, and yet, there is the argument
that slash, purporting to be about gay men, should do just that and actually
reflect the gay male reality and right now, it doesn't and is unrealistic. Well,
again--it's not about *realism.* It's about the fetish; it's about seeing the
Other--the Outside, the thing that we are not and can not in actuality be a
part off--and sexualizing it to match the needs and desires of the fetishizer.
It's about queering the lifestyle and queering the reality--taking it outside
of reality and into fantasy; taking it outside of the constructs of reality
and re-actualizing it as a fetishized hyper-reality--queering gay homosexuality
so that it reflects female sexuality. It's about the sexuality of the reader
and the writer, not about the sexuality of the characters being slashed. After
all, isn't the standard porno two-girls-getting-it-on set-up to be something
for a straight man to enjoy? Yes, unarguably. And slash is the same thing only
in reverse (in many cases; there are, of course, exceptions--I speak from
the perspective of a straight woman who reads slash, and not as the perspective
of a slasher who uses it as a point of definition of self-identification, as
some of my friends do).
In some ways, I think it's kind of odd that women--who are the ones, by and
large, who write and read slash--are being told that their fetish isn't valid
because it's not realistic. Maybe it's only the case because gay men also read
slash, and see it as being outside of their experiences--but than, it's supposed
to be. It's not reality, it's fantasy--it's the fetishization of the Other.
It's the fantasy of women to create a womanless space; and yet this place is
designed around what women want and thusly it's the inverse of a womanless space--it's
a woman-filled and woman-defined space, because it's pervaded by female sexuality
to an extreme degree, and it is to that degree only because it is such a womanless
space--what better way to illustrate what women really want than by doing it
in a space without women? It is a space all about women because it has been
stripped of them, defining via the absence.
Getting into if it's right or not opens up a whole other can of worms, and one
in which I actually didn't really get into, since I think that many ficcers
have a different mindset than pornographers. I was kinda using the kinds of
fetishizations you find in porn as parallels, even though when you look at the
communities, they are very different things, really. No one goes looking for
reality when they are looking for porn; it's all about the fantasy. Being all
technical, slash is porn, but it's really a totally different thing, which is
why there's such a strong reaction to it by gays and bis, who are struggling
for acceptance. Well, kinda--most lesbians and bi women I know either a) regularly
watch porn and laugh hysterically at it b) roll their eyes and say, "Yeah,
whatever. Men have no clue." and that's it--no calls for them to get a
clue, no ranting and bitching about how unrealistic it is, just a blow-off and
"Yeah, next?"
Why is slash different? Some of it stems from the fact that it's by *FAR* more
character-driven than porn. After all, unless it's a PWP, someone took the time
to do this, to try and get into the characters heads so they could make it plausible
for the two characters being slashed to end up screwing like crazed weasels.
And as a result, there is an emotional investment by the reader as well. And
so, of course, there would be a stronger feeling of let-down--and perhaps justifiable
pissed-off-ness, when, after all that lead up, the result is one that is one
that is, well...wrong. I guess if you got it up to a point, and then, sudden,
wow, you completely missed the experience that the reader was expecting, then
suddenly the slash reading experience is not one of happy, post-coital meltdown
but one of bad sex that started out great, and so you're pissed. All that work,
and bupkis. No happy meltdown, just the vague feeling of "Wow, that was
bad for me. Was it bad for you?"
Another question, one that I won't answer but leave for you--should the fetisher
have to modify the fetish to please the fetishee? Doesn't doing so violate the
very idea of being allowed to have your own kink? Is PC so absolute that you
aren't allowed fantasy, even when you say, "Look, just a fantasy?"
I view ficcing slightly differently than porn, after all, which is why I can
ask these kinds of questions with a straight face. After all, in slashing, there
is an emotional investment in the characters, both on the side of the writer
and the reader. That accounts for a lot, and gives slash, I think, more freedom
than porn would have.
So anyway, there's my theory. And it is just a theory--one of many--about why
women like slash.