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May. 1st, 2011 08:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
floorpigeonI really love close male friendship in fiction. I do. And I'm a purist in some ways-- I think real love doesn't need anything to thrive but devotion itself. And yet, when the friendship gets close enough, sometimes I'm unhappy. 'Why can't they just be in love?' a part of me whines. 'He's already acting 70% there. Why keep the other 30% back?' I think this is the feeling that makes most slashers... slash. But this is the feeling that simply makes me unhappy and confused. I always tell myself that being a slasher is one of my favorite things to self-identify as, but ultimately, I'm an odd sort of slasher, if I am one at all.
Maybe a part of it's a kind of perverse romanticism: a desire to have things be absolute, or a need to have character tensions in the narrative be addressed satisfyingly. I feel the need to be a fan of a series 'as is', or not be into much at all if I'm going to start slashing it. When I like a work and it's got homoerotic subtext, I just get frustrated rather than happy. In the 'real world', I guess you either swing that way or you don't. But in stories or manga especially, especially with the notorious gender-role fuzziness in some shoujo, there's this inherent ambiguity that drives me nuts thinking that it would only take a tiny push-- that never happens. It's shoujo, not shounen-ai. That's pretty maddening.
I mean, I'm so drawn to male-centric shoujo because it's got plot (as opposed to more hardcore titles), and I want plot with my pr0n (ideally). But it's so... ugh. Sometimes it's like, they spend volumes upon volumes obsessing over each other and hugging and declaring devotion, but they never go beyond a hug and never have girlfriends. That starts to feel like some really perverse female fantasy-land moreso than the most outrageous yaoi pr0n (to me). In yaoi, the guys have male sex-drives even if they're willowy models with long hair. In shoujo, the guys are tough, complex and kick-ass with all the sex-drive of a six-day old kitten. Not that having a sexuality 'fixes' it, but it precludes some issues; if the guy *is* into sex, he's unfailingly more devoted to his guy BFF anyway, which is so unfair to the girlfriend. I mean, really. It's like reading shoujo-style shounen-ai subtext is reading about closeted gay boys stay closeted. Yeay fun?
Of course, it's not as bad as some of the shoujos (that I never even touch) about the gay character that 'just happens' to fall in love with the opposite sex, or be in a triangle with a straight couple. Ugh. Another case of 'it doesn't matter if this happens in real life or not', 'cause it's just so disturbing. I read this description of an old-school shoujo manga that said the heroine spent awhile wondering whether to choose the guy she knows is gay and some other guy interested in her. I mean, huh?? The sheer idiocy of this heroine aside, I just think reading this as a queer-positive person has got to have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Not as bad as some Korean drama where the gay guy's parents set him up on a date to 'cure' him... and it works. That is just... in what way is this cute? I mean, really? On the other hand, I mean, lots of yaoi centers around 'straight' guys being converted, but no one sets them up to cure their badevilwrong straightness.
Ultimately I guess I don't get people's mindset where they've got some sense of entitlement over others' sexuality, like, 'it's such a waste you're gay, let me convert you'. Though all this is a digression.
In any case, I really feel ghetto-ized by reading so much yaoi (and even mostly avoiding shounen-ai, and definitely 99% of 'subtexty' mangas). I miss plot. I miss slow development. I miss stories that aren't romances but have romantic elements between same-sex couples (although in my world-- that is, in slash-- this may include hot sex at some point, which is why slash wins). You know, a good story to try (in a shoujo) would be to see what happens when you have this close and emotional friendship between two boys and they *try out* some stuff together, and then, in a natural fashion, the sexual aspect fades into greater familiarity and they're 'just friends' again naturally. But this never happens. I dunno, maybe it'd be too sad for me, but I'm curious-- I mean, there wouldn't be loss or a break up, just a gradual sexualizing and desexualizing without the female-centric romantic baggage. It wouldn't be straight-up seinen because the friendship itself is so intense and romantic, but it would be more 'guy-like' in that sex != romance but may be on the table.
I'm actually really curious about this. Since I'm not that good at writing romance, I'm probably especially interested 'cause I could see myself writing it: an epic friendship with on-again-off-again sex. Just like, this really close bond that can be subtle and long-lasting, and not all possessive-lover cliche, but involve bouts of dirty fucking, and some comfort sex, and hugging, too-- just depending on the situation. This would be such a fascinating dynamic! And it wouldn't be 'yaoi' because no extra romance dynamic is added-- just sex. Well, I'm not holding out or anything. >___>
Maybe a part of it's a kind of perverse romanticism: a desire to have things be absolute, or a need to have character tensions in the narrative be addressed satisfyingly. I feel the need to be a fan of a series 'as is', or not be into much at all if I'm going to start slashing it. When I like a work and it's got homoerotic subtext, I just get frustrated rather than happy. In the 'real world', I guess you either swing that way or you don't. But in stories or manga especially, especially with the notorious gender-role fuzziness in some shoujo, there's this inherent ambiguity that drives me nuts thinking that it would only take a tiny push-- that never happens. It's shoujo, not shounen-ai. That's pretty maddening.
I mean, I'm so drawn to male-centric shoujo because it's got plot (as opposed to more hardcore titles), and I want plot with my pr0n (ideally). But it's so... ugh. Sometimes it's like, they spend volumes upon volumes obsessing over each other and hugging and declaring devotion, but they never go beyond a hug and never have girlfriends. That starts to feel like some really perverse female fantasy-land moreso than the most outrageous yaoi pr0n (to me). In yaoi, the guys have male sex-drives even if they're willowy models with long hair. In shoujo, the guys are tough, complex and kick-ass with all the sex-drive of a six-day old kitten. Not that having a sexuality 'fixes' it, but it precludes some issues; if the guy *is* into sex, he's unfailingly more devoted to his guy BFF anyway, which is so unfair to the girlfriend. I mean, really. It's like reading shoujo-style shounen-ai subtext is reading about closeted gay boys stay closeted. Yeay fun?
Of course, it's not as bad as some of the shoujos (that I never even touch) about the gay character that 'just happens' to fall in love with the opposite sex, or be in a triangle with a straight couple. Ugh. Another case of 'it doesn't matter if this happens in real life or not', 'cause it's just so disturbing. I read this description of an old-school shoujo manga that said the heroine spent awhile wondering whether to choose the guy she knows is gay and some other guy interested in her. I mean, huh?? The sheer idiocy of this heroine aside, I just think reading this as a queer-positive person has got to have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Not as bad as some Korean drama where the gay guy's parents set him up on a date to 'cure' him... and it works. That is just... in what way is this cute? I mean, really? On the other hand, I mean, lots of yaoi centers around 'straight' guys being converted, but no one sets them up to cure their badevilwrong straightness.
Ultimately I guess I don't get people's mindset where they've got some sense of entitlement over others' sexuality, like, 'it's such a waste you're gay, let me convert you'. Though all this is a digression.
In any case, I really feel ghetto-ized by reading so much yaoi (and even mostly avoiding shounen-ai, and definitely 99% of 'subtexty' mangas). I miss plot. I miss slow development. I miss stories that aren't romances but have romantic elements between same-sex couples (although in my world-- that is, in slash-- this may include hot sex at some point, which is why slash wins). You know, a good story to try (in a shoujo) would be to see what happens when you have this close and emotional friendship between two boys and they *try out* some stuff together, and then, in a natural fashion, the sexual aspect fades into greater familiarity and they're 'just friends' again naturally. But this never happens. I dunno, maybe it'd be too sad for me, but I'm curious-- I mean, there wouldn't be loss or a break up, just a gradual sexualizing and desexualizing without the female-centric romantic baggage. It wouldn't be straight-up seinen because the friendship itself is so intense and romantic, but it would be more 'guy-like' in that sex != romance but may be on the table.
I'm actually really curious about this. Since I'm not that good at writing romance, I'm probably especially interested 'cause I could see myself writing it: an epic friendship with on-again-off-again sex. Just like, this really close bond that can be subtle and long-lasting, and not all possessive-lover cliche, but involve bouts of dirty fucking, and some comfort sex, and hugging, too-- just depending on the situation. This would be such a fascinating dynamic! And it wouldn't be 'yaoi' because no extra romance dynamic is added-- just sex. Well, I'm not holding out or anything. >___>
