mcgimpsey:

Technically, this is misogyny, right?  

Mary Sue genderfuck?

My favourite Fan Secret thus far — some of the secrets are a bit silly, but I find them endearing and honest and it has me thinking about my relationship with fandom, fan fiction, slash, etc.

Full disclosure: I was heavily into fan fiction/slash/etc from 1996-2006 (that’s my girlhood!). Was involved one way or another with various fandoms — little embarrrassed to admit which ones, but I will say that I lectured twice in university (yes, really! was actually paid a ‘guest lecturer’ fee in my third year!) about boyband slash (specifically N*SYNC).

I’ve been thinking a lot about how Slash remains a genuinely authentic online subculture that challenges the one-way narrative of mainstream cultural production (but I do see in ten years that subculture becoming increasingly commercialized and co-opted — ‘fan consultancy’ is becoming far more common then we like to think — consider Ian Levine’s 1980s involvement with Doctor Who, etc.).

It’s still remains for me a very pure form of online participatory culture: translating personal/private yearnings of what you hope the canon can be, meeting others with the same desires, creating a ‘sub-reality’ that’s like the best version of your favourite show/film/book/band/etc. Why do you think the most popular fandoms are TV shows that lasted a few seasons (ie. Forever Knight, Due South) or were really bad boybands? Answer: allowed more room for fans to create better characterization, plot lines, interactions, etc. (v. DIY)

Aaaand if you look at it via the lense of feminist theory, Slash really offers a unique female model for a subculture that emphasizes non-hierarchal community — the way reader/critic/writer/beta reader roles easily shift, how the WIP serialization encourages a collectively-driven narrative, how recs are word-of-mouth (though, there is also the other end of the spectrum where you have writers with huge fanbases that go wanky - see Clair’s Very Secret Diaries, and how fandom can really be a little too weird).

When I was heavily into Slash, I got the biggest kick out of fandoms’ deconstruction of the romance narrative. My mom was a voracious reader of Harlequin books, so I think it was kinda cool that I was this girl un-consciously challenging patriarchy’s tendency to male-code the female body by reading genderfuck/genderswap stories.

Slash wasn’t just straight women writing gay porn but a ‘queer female space’ (I’m past-tensing because maybe in the past few years, it’s changed). The “/” actually created a space where women who participate weren’t exactly straight, nor ‘fully’ queer. I really found it to be this weird collision of female/queer issues — you saw stories dealing a lot less w/ LGBTQ issues, but a definite ‘queering’ of female sexuality issues (see rape fics, mpregs, etc.).

This queer female space is a total fantasy co-created by the writer/reader, explores voyeurism, exhibitionism, etc. Def an emo/erotic exchange of stories between writer/beta/reader (women writing for other women about boys/boys, girls/girls, elf/dwarf, human/vampire, etc.). Possibly a female homosocial environment that challenged the construction of feminine desire.

ANYWAYZ. I’m genuinely curious to see how fandom has ~*progressed*~ (this remains a type of aca/fan soap-boxing that’s still in the grips of Henry Jenkins, Camille Bacon-Smith, etc.)

(via fansecrets)