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fandomnumbergenerator) wrote2015-07-27 09:49 am
fandomnumbergenerator) wrote2015-07-27 09:49 am
Entry tags:
Sad gay baby
I thought the “baby” part was more like, “my poor darling”. Like, when people say about a character, “my poor baby”, that’s not infantilizing, right?
Also, I am uncomfortable with criticisms of female fandom that focus on fetishizing and essentializing gay men. Because if you that that to its logical conclusion, you make all slash “problematic”. I’m still thinking about this, but I feel like we get it from both sides – writing slash is on one hand fetishizing and objectifying gay men and is simultaneously misogynistic and erasing women, and that queer women should only write femslash. I worry that it comes out of an idea that slash is socially progressive in any way beyond the most basic fact that women sharing their sexual fantasies is still a very contested act.
As far as BBC Sherlock goes, I’m perfectly willing to see Sherlock as someone who is rational and has no time for emotions, but I can’t square that with shipping Johnlock. For the first season, you could do what abundantlyqueer did, and assume they were fucking every time they were off camera. But by now, you end up with Sherlock having a massive multi-year crush on his best friend who keeps saying he’s not gay. That’s pretty classic teenage behavior, and actually kind of weird in anyone in their 30s.
I see “sad gay baby” as a trope and not an epithet, and that’s where certain criticism start to make me nervous. There are a lot of fetishizing, othering, objectifying, sexualizing, or heteronormative tropes in slash (seme/uke, A/B/O, soul mates, the abundance of missionary position anal sex) and to me “sad gay baby” is just one more. All the characters I’m interested in are big, self-destructive messes with no healthy ways of expressing their emotions, so even though I have never actually tagged anything “sad gay baby” it is perilously close to tropes that I read, write and reblog all the time.
Of course I would never call a friend of mine a sad gay baby. But I am also very unlikely to start a conversation with a gay male friend about any slash trope. Just like I don’t want to know if my gay male friends watch lesbian porn.
I understand the objections that the “gay” in “sad gay baby” carries with it an implication that gay = tragically pining, and that may be enough for me to say, it’s too problematic.
I’m still thinking about it.
Also, I am uncomfortable with criticisms of female fandom that focus on fetishizing and essentializing gay men. Because if you that that to its logical conclusion, you make all slash “problematic”. I’m still thinking about this, but I feel like we get it from both sides – writing slash is on one hand fetishizing and objectifying gay men and is simultaneously misogynistic and erasing women, and that queer women should only write femslash. I worry that it comes out of an idea that slash is socially progressive in any way beyond the most basic fact that women sharing their sexual fantasies is still a very contested act.
As far as BBC Sherlock goes, I’m perfectly willing to see Sherlock as someone who is rational and has no time for emotions, but I can’t square that with shipping Johnlock. For the first season, you could do what abundantlyqueer did, and assume they were fucking every time they were off camera. But by now, you end up with Sherlock having a massive multi-year crush on his best friend who keeps saying he’s not gay. That’s pretty classic teenage behavior, and actually kind of weird in anyone in their 30s.
I see “sad gay baby” as a trope and not an epithet, and that’s where certain criticism start to make me nervous. There are a lot of fetishizing, othering, objectifying, sexualizing, or heteronormative tropes in slash (seme/uke, A/B/O, soul mates, the abundance of missionary position anal sex) and to me “sad gay baby” is just one more. All the characters I’m interested in are big, self-destructive messes with no healthy ways of expressing their emotions, so even though I have never actually tagged anything “sad gay baby” it is perilously close to tropes that I read, write and reblog all the time.
Of course I would never call a friend of mine a sad gay baby. But I am also very unlikely to start a conversation with a gay male friend about any slash trope. Just like I don’t want to know if my gay male friends watch lesbian porn.
I understand the objections that the “gay” in “sad gay baby” carries with it an implication that gay = tragically pining, and that may be enough for me to say, it’s too problematic.
I’m still thinking about it.