Except when you're writing femslash because you've gotten tired of reading fics that aren't like any lesbian lives you've ever known...
Which would be a perfectly awesome motivation to write femslash! I just can't say that I've really seen any fics like that . . . which doesn't mean they don't exist. (For one thing, femslash conventions can differ radically from fandom to fandom; some femslash fandoms are all about the ensemble, others about the OTP. I tend to stay with the ensemble fandoms that have large numbers of slashable women can be put together in many permutations.) I've read fics where the partners argue, obviously, but usually it's while planning a revolution or fendng off the apocalypse or over how one partner tried to kill the other, not over who cleans the litter box. But then I tend to stay away from the more realistic source canons; stuff written for them may well be different.
It's not all about gaze. I understand that term is talking about perspective and viewpoint, and we can never get away from who's looking because it shapes what we see, but all this talk of gaze seems to emphasize looking too much: active (subject) looker, passive (object) recipient. That's a power dynamic right thar. All this gaze stuff is wigging me out.
I've gotten pushback before claiming that I overemphasized the power of the gaze. On one level, that's great; I'd love to be wrong about it, and to believe that it's possible to break out of the logic of subject-verb-object. Unfortunately, I still don't feel like I have the grounds to believe that, or that language and fiction aren't inherently objectifying just by their nature. But it's something that certainly should be wig-worthy.
And of course I can only agree strongly about the importance of agency and femslash characters being themselves, since I wrote the OP. Indeed, I'd say that it's the fantasy (phantasy) of agency, of radical autonomy (e.g., here) which appeals to me in femslash (and in fanfiction in general). But I'd maintain that it is still a fantasy: that is, writers are projecting something they'd like to be the case onto fictional characters, a process which strikes me as still fundamentally fetishistic. (Indeed, I suspect that one of the main ways m/m slashers fetishistically use queered male characters is through the same fantasy of agency, although played out slightly differently.) Not that there's anything wrong with that, which is sort of my point.
I appreciate you sharing your experience; it makes for a deeper understanding of human experience on my part, and I thank you for that.
no subject
Which would be a perfectly awesome motivation to write femslash! I just can't say that I've really seen any fics like that . . . which doesn't mean they don't exist. (For one thing, femslash conventions can differ radically from fandom to fandom; some femslash fandoms are all about the ensemble, others about the OTP. I tend to stay with the ensemble fandoms that have large numbers of slashable women can be put together in many permutations.) I've read fics where the partners argue, obviously, but usually it's while planning a revolution or fendng off the apocalypse or over how one partner tried to kill the other, not over who cleans the litter box. But then I tend to stay away from the more realistic source canons; stuff written for them may well be different.
It's not all about gaze. I understand that term is talking about perspective and viewpoint, and we can never get away from who's looking because it shapes what we see, but all this talk of gaze seems to emphasize looking too much: active (subject) looker, passive (object) recipient. That's a power dynamic right thar. All this gaze stuff is wigging me out.
I've gotten pushback before claiming that I overemphasized the power of the gaze. On one level, that's great; I'd love to be wrong about it, and to believe that it's possible to break out of the logic of subject-verb-object. Unfortunately, I still don't feel like I have the grounds to believe that, or that language and fiction aren't inherently objectifying just by their nature. But it's something that certainly should be wig-worthy.
And of course I can only agree strongly about the importance of agency and femslash characters being themselves, since I wrote the OP. Indeed, I'd say that it's the fantasy (phantasy) of agency, of radical autonomy (e.g., here) which appeals to me in femslash (and in fanfiction in general). But I'd maintain that it is still a fantasy: that is, writers are projecting something they'd like to be the case onto fictional characters, a process which strikes me as still fundamentally fetishistic. (Indeed, I suspect that one of the main ways m/m slashers fetishistically use queered male characters is through the same fantasy of agency, although played out slightly differently.) Not that there's anything wrong with that, which is sort of my point.
I appreciate you sharing your experience; it makes for a deeper understanding of human experience on my part, and I thank you for that.