swatkat

Lovely post here that you all might want to read. I'm definitely one of the Cold Pricklies the OP is talking about. *g* "All slashers make the homoerotic subtext of their canon explicit, but not all think it's appropriate to also make the emotional subtext explicit" - this articulates the very reason that a *lot* of the fic in my favourite pairings (slash *and* het) have me gritting my teeth and pressing the back button.

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From:

jaybee65.livejournal.com

It's funny -- we both seem to have gone through a self-questioning "Why don't I like m/m slash?" phase at about the same time period, and probably asked ourselves a lot of very similar questions, but I'm actually quite interested to see how *different* the experience has been for both of us.

I never had a cringing or even particularly negative reaction to any m/m slash, and because of that I never really worried whether I was dealing with latent homophobia. The issue for me, in contrast, was that I *didn't* react to m/m stories -- my typical response was something along the lines of, "Meh. Really well-written, but...meh."

This lack of reaction really bothered me, because I saw people all around me -- whose intelligence and taste I respected -- become highly enthusiastic about these stories, and I couldn't understand why I was missing the point. After all, I like fanfic, I like men, I like erotica -- shouldn't the combination of all these things be something I embrace? But every time I sat down to read an m/m story, even if highly recommended and beautifully written, I felt like someone forcing herself to eat a serving of brussels sprouts because after all, they're good for you!

But the questioning I did was mostly of myself, rather than of m/m slash as a genre -- I felt *I* was the aberration, and I wanted to know, well, what was wrong with me. It couldn't be a sexual preference issue, because I'm *attracted* to men, and besides, there are a significant number of lesbians writing m/m, so there's obviously something far more complex going on than a simple equation of women writing slash because they're interested in male bodies.

I answered my question by taking a very close look at what fanfic I *do* like, and asking myself what I get out of it. The answer turned out to be what I described above -- my imagination is captured most strongly by fanfic (and actually books, too, now that I think about it) that provide me with material to explore the different types of female life experiences. M/m, no matter *how* good, isn't going to give me that. In fact, quite a lot of het isn't either, because large chunks of it really seem to be motivated by an idealization and romanticization of the male love object, which leaves me just as cold and "meh" as m/m does.

The answer, then, is that what I'm looking to get out of fanfic is completely different than what many other fans want -- but now that I finally understand this, I'm not so paranoid about what "my problem" is, and can relax and see that what other fans are doing are, in a completely different way, just as empowering of females. So these days I no longer worry about why I'm an apple when so many others seem to be oranges. Especially now that I see there are so *many* different motivations that we've got an entire produce section represented. *g*

From:

nell65.livejournal.com

Yes, I think we were too - certainly we've talked about it before.

And this was certainly a powerful element in my own questioning:

This lack of reaction really bothered me, because I saw people all around me -- whose intelligence and taste I respected -- become highly enthusiastic about these stories, and I couldn't understand why I was missing the point. After all, I like fanfic, I like men, I like erotica -- shouldn't the combination of all these things be something I embrace? But every time I sat down to read an m/m story, even if highly recommended and beautifully written, I felt like someone forcing herself to eat a serving of brussels sprouts because after all, they're good for you!

Only as far as I was concerned, the brussel sprouts were overcooked and cold.

I think my quetsioning/self exploring went differently than yours because my reaction wasn't just 'meh' but more actively negative, even in some cases downright hostile.

Not unlike my reaction to particularly horribly rendered Nikitas! But while this has never once made me worry about whether or not I liked women (!), given the arguments that have raged over m/m, my hostile reaction to some of it made me quite worried about the darker recesses of my own soul. Especially when measured up against the tastes and experience of those fans of whom I had formed good opinions....

From:

swatkat24.livejournal.com

I answered my question by taking a very close look at what fanfic I *do* like, and asking myself what I get out of it. The answer turned out to be what I described above -- my imagination is captured most strongly by fanfic (and actually books, too, now that I think about it) that provide me with material to explore the different types of female life experiences.

Oh, you and I have a very similar, and yet very different way of responding to fanfic and books, it seems. " provide me with material to explore the different types of female life experiences" - this is exactly what I do, except for the 'female' bit. I read fiction because it allows me to live many lives, experience many things that I wouldn't be able to do in RL. And when I read, I need a character to identify with – male or female. While it is a fact that there are more women characters I identify with than male ones, I *do* identify with men as well. I want to read about human experience, period. *g*

Swatkat

From:

jaybee65.livejournal.com

I read fiction because it allows me to live many lives, experience many things that I wouldn't be able to do in RL. And when I read, I need a character to identify with – male or female. While it is a fact that there are more women characters I identify with than male ones, I *do* identify with men as well. I want to read about human experience, period. *g*

I can certainly understand that perspective. But I think there are some specific RL reasons why I prefer the narrower focus in my choice of fiction.

I am, in RL, completely surrounded by men. It wasn't even until I started responding to this thread that I thought about just *how* much that is the case. I live with a man. Share a business with a man. My four or five closest friends, and the ones whom my social life centers on, are all men. I am constantly interacting with them and dealing with male energy -- not that I think this is a bad thing, mind you, but that's the simply environment I live in.

My interests in fiction, I believe, are probably in part aimed at balancing that gender equation out a bit, at thinking about that other half of humanity who happen to be like me -- not because I don't like the men I spend my time with, but just because examining women's lives through the stories I read satisfies a curiosity and internal need that I don't get satisfied in RL.

Does that make any sense?

From:

swatkat24.livejournal.com

Oh, it does!

When I was growing up, I was this incorrigible tomboy who would have nothing to do with girls. I had many girl friends, I did (got along pretty well with both boys and girls) - but I was always the outsider who didn't quite get them very well. And no, I didn't think I was missing anything - I was comfortable enough in my own dreamworld. Until the time I learnt to become comfortable with being a girl. And then it was all a very new experience (it still is sometimes; sometimes, surrounded by my closest girlfriends, it's difficult to believe how *much* I enjoy their company), and reading fiction certainly helped me a lot - to understand, to figure things about myself (I'm still doing that) and about being a girl. That's something I still do, which is probably the reason why I identify so easily with female characters. But there are experiences and sentiments that don't depend on gender, and I'm interested in them too, because it's all a part of knowing more about myself.

Which is my long-winded way of saying that I understand what you mean.

Swatkat