What does femslash mean to you?
Apr. 29th, 2011 07:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ein_myriaI know that there are others who object to the use of femslash (because it's derived from 'slash', and seems to imply that femslash works can't stand on their own worth).
The use of 'femslash' as a term is actually pretty recent for me; when I started reading fanfiction, I actually started out with "yuri" - which was japanese animation and manga aimed at a largely male audience. Then came "f/f" and "alt" works with the pinkrabbit and xena-dom. "Slash" started being used and "femmeslash" started being used in relation to that. "Femslash," which seemed to contest the "femme" bit, seemed to come into vogue after that, particularly because![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
femslash_today used it. Other terms are also used, ladyslash, and so on...
Personally, I'm not such a strickler for definition. I consider genderswapped MTF to be femslash. I consider futanari to be femslash in some respects. It's really about "gender construction." I read het and slash (to some degree; mostly in manga) and am largely interested in femslash from the "unconventional relationship" perspective; and to me, it's not synonymous with "lesbian." Don't get me wrong, a lot of the euro-american lesbian cultural tropes do seem to have greatest penetration in this genre, but f/f isn't exclusively about that.
There are women who identify as straight who write really awesome femslash and similarly, "straight" women who read, enjoy femslash and the smut. Let's not forget about the men too--who do enjoy reading and writing the stories--and are often marginalized in this genre precisely because of their gender. "Bad fics" and "too much focus on the strap on" have people wondering whether the author is male, as if somehow gender is to blame for the lack of realism, or for the penis envy. (Is there such a thing as reverse mysogyny? If there is, this would be an example.)
There's certain implicit assumptions and cultural expectations about the way femslash is written. I once assumed and intimated (more than a decade ago now) that an infamous epic lesbian porn series on ASSTR was probably written by a man because the writing was incredibly rough, raunchy, and raw, "as if a man wrote it." I think I must have been slammed by I don't know how many flames (and one personally by the author), because no, the author was female, and that was simply how she wrote porn. It was thus that I was educated about how apparently the author's "gendered authenticity" matters; there's a pressure on several fronts: to not be seen "pandering" to the male gaze, and also to be "authentically" female-centric. I wonder if that's why f/f is seen to be so conservative?
Let's reverse it; with slash, it's largely women writing about the Other. Is there pressure, where you might be denigrated for being female because you write mediocre to bad slash? Is there pressure not to "pander" to the female audience? Slash and femslash in this respect seems worlds apart.
These days I just care about a good immersive narrative in femslash. In some ways, that's why I'm all up in arms about that lambda debacle; an awards for "self-identified lesbians"? *shakes head* Lesbians aren't the only ones writing "good" f/f fiction these days.
Adapated from a comment I posted onaron_kristina's journal, and from the things I've read in this post.
The use of 'femslash' as a term is actually pretty recent for me; when I started reading fanfiction, I actually started out with "yuri" - which was japanese animation and manga aimed at a largely male audience. Then came "f/f" and "alt" works with the pinkrabbit and xena-dom. "Slash" started being used and "femmeslash" started being used in relation to that. "Femslash," which seemed to contest the "femme" bit, seemed to come into vogue after that, particularly because
femslash_today used it. Other terms are also used, ladyslash, and so on...Personally, I'm not such a strickler for definition. I consider genderswapped MTF to be femslash. I consider futanari to be femslash in some respects. It's really about "gender construction." I read het and slash (to some degree; mostly in manga) and am largely interested in femslash from the "unconventional relationship" perspective; and to me, it's not synonymous with "lesbian." Don't get me wrong, a lot of the euro-american lesbian cultural tropes do seem to have greatest penetration in this genre, but f/f isn't exclusively about that.
There are women who identify as straight who write really awesome femslash and similarly, "straight" women who read, enjoy femslash and the smut. Let's not forget about the men too--who do enjoy reading and writing the stories--and are often marginalized in this genre precisely because of their gender. "Bad fics" and "too much focus on the strap on" have people wondering whether the author is male, as if somehow gender is to blame for the lack of realism, or for the penis envy. (Is there such a thing as reverse mysogyny? If there is, this would be an example.)
There's certain implicit assumptions and cultural expectations about the way femslash is written. I once assumed and intimated (more than a decade ago now) that an infamous epic lesbian porn series on ASSTR was probably written by a man because the writing was incredibly rough, raunchy, and raw, "as if a man wrote it." I think I must have been slammed by I don't know how many flames (and one personally by the author), because no, the author was female, and that was simply how she wrote porn. It was thus that I was educated about how apparently the author's "gendered authenticity" matters; there's a pressure on several fronts: to not be seen "pandering" to the male gaze, and also to be "authentically" female-centric. I wonder if that's why f/f is seen to be so conservative?
Let's reverse it; with slash, it's largely women writing about the Other. Is there pressure, where you might be denigrated for being female because you write mediocre to bad slash? Is there pressure not to "pander" to the female audience? Slash and femslash in this respect seems worlds apart.
These days I just care about a good immersive narrative in femslash. In some ways, that's why I'm all up in arms about that lambda debacle; an awards for "self-identified lesbians"? *shakes head* Lesbians aren't the only ones writing "good" f/f fiction these days.
Adapated from a comment I posted on
aron_kristina's journal, and from the things I've read in this post.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-01 12:33 pm (UTC)I think you're spot on for this point! I guess it's also kind of funny talking about Those Fans in that way when there's a trope fest for f/f going on right now. lol I guess this is the only "acceptable" time when you can celebrate the silly side of fandom.
bad f/f written by and/or for men can be bad in different ways from bad f/f written for women.
Again, I think that you've got a really good point here. It's a pity that somehow these two things get conflated more often than not.
I agree with you that it's unfair to assume someone's gender based on the flaws in their f/f writing, but I don't think it's completely out of the question to note that some of those flaws can relate to gender or sexuality--I just think people get carried away applying that sometimes. And some of the stuff aimed at the male gaze is so absolutely repugnant on a fundamental level that I can see why people are bending over backwards to go the other way, though--as you noted--that creates its own share of problems.
*nods* I agree with you about that; there's just certain real life situations that just don't work well, or will never make it to the page.
The misandry sentiment comes from what I've read on certain anonymous meta post threads about certain male authors who write femslash primarily, and I'm not sure whether it's representative of a larger communal sentiment. To be very honest, it makes me very uncomfortable engaging in a subculture that seems to be quite silent in response to such attitudes. I can see it snowballing into something big and uncontained. Then again, it could be trolls, and they're just trying to bait the young'uns, but at times, I'm just not sure. :|
no subject
Date: 2011-05-02 12:15 pm (UTC)Oh, I see. Yeah, I have trouble sometimes telling what's honest opinion and what's trolling. (Though even when it is trolling, it can be nice to see people reject it despite the Do Not Feed the Trolls thing.) I sure hope it's not representative of a larger communal sentiment. Hopefully it's just a few jerks who are trying to feel better about themselves by dumping on other people, or who are parodying people in order to set up a strawman.
I've seen a lot of disturbing attitudes in fandom in general. Often they are challenged, but not always, and sometimes the challengers seem to be in the minority. That's always disheartening.