Aug. 21st, 2008 at 11:25 AM
You know what? I love fandom a lot. It's given me so many things--friendships, delight, Story and story and stories until I'm positively surfeited, meta and analysis and exegesis, a wider sensitivity to issues that I never would have even thought of had I been left to my own self-centered devices, and probably a dozen more things that I can't even think of because I'm only on my second cup of coffee this morning.
But fandom, as all human endeavors are, is a flawed thing, and that's what I want to talk about today.
Look. I am all for the slash and the yaoi and the boys who like to touch other boys in ways that would get them hauled in on public indecency charges. Are you kidding? I love that stuff. It makes me really happy.
But look. Can you lay off announcing your posts with things like "It's time for some [schoolname]faggotry"? And stop talking about one character going to sex another up as "rape" (or "raep" as some would have it)? And maybe lay off calling everything "gay" or "ghei"?
Look. I'm guessing most of the ones of you doing this are on the young side. Possibly you've never even heard someone called a faggot, outside of what you've seen on the television or at the movies. And I'm guessing that you probably identify as straight, because I gotta tell you--those words still carry some heavy weight, and it's not happy-funtimes weight. It's the weight of prejudice and hate and the stomach-churning self-loathing of knowing oneself to be other, just by virtue of one's sexual preferences.
It's not funny. It's not cute. When I opened up my flist this morning and saw "[schoolname]faggotry" it felt like I'd just been punched in the gut. Every time I read someone talking about how "gay" certain (soft-spoken, fine-featured, admittedly femmy) male characters are, it makes me cringe. And, god, every time I see talk of "rape" in a haha-they're-so-horny context, it makes me sick to my stomach.
So stop it. Please. It's hurting me, and I'm guessing I can't be the only queer-identified member of fandom out there who's hurt by this.
Regards,
Me
*sighs* That's something I've wanted to say for... months now. Years, even.
I don't think saying it will do anything, but at least I got it off my chest.
Purest speculation: I think this is a trait more of the anime/manga fandoms than Western media fandoms. I don't really participate in any Western fandoms, aside from reading the occasional fic in a peculiar pattern (seriously, fic for shows I've never even watched, but the authors are just that good, and write Story that hits my buttons in all the right ways). And it seems to be a relatively recent phenomenon, say within the last couple of years.
I think, but can't really prove this or back up the assertion, that it's most common in fandoms that have a fanbase located outside the US, with fans who are fairly young--I'm guessing late teens/very early twenties. I have absolutely no data for this, but the way these words get deployed feels very young to me, and other usage clues points at a non-USonian perspective.
Or maybe it's just that queerness is such a given anymore--in that it's a "post-queer" kind of a world, the same way it's a "post-feminist" world (and lord, that's another can of worms entirely, which I'll save for another day). I don't really know.
It just kicks me in the chest every time I see someone use those words.