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So, floating around on the internet is someone who, through a fictional character, called another individual a 'dyke' as an insult. Said person writes m/m slash.
This confuses me, and in trying to figure out how that could seem reasonable, or even moderately okay, given that I've seen a lot of people do that. Seriously, they'll be all, 'some of my best friends are gay people', and you'll see it in action, then they'll see something stupid happen, and say 'oh my god, that's so gay' , or someone'll piss them off, and they'll do the under-the-breath 'fag'. And I get that they've probably separated their friend from the whole gay thing in their heads, and culturally, people of my generation (at least my high school/middle school) seem to have used 'gay' as a substitute for 'stupid' long before any of us, really, were aware what the word meant. Which says a lot, I think, about the people older than us, who were, presumably, the ones that used said word in such a manner.
Anyway, I've gotten off track. But I'm wondering if some slashers do the same thing. They see the pretty boys, and stick them together because 'ooh, eye candy', without really GETTING the fact that two men having sex is, to a very great extent, gay. I wonder if they feel that slash fanfiction, given that many people who write it are supposedly women (and I don't know if anyone has done a rigorous study of that, hence the 'supposedly'), is written for women to titillate themselves, so it's not really gay, or so it doesn't really involve gay people?
So I'm confused, although I shouldn't be, by people's apparent ability to partition things so they don't have to deal with what makes them uncomfortable, or even understand that there's something 'wrong' in enjoying a thing in fantasy that they condemn in real life . . . perhaps I should sub in 'morally suspect' for 'wrong' in that sentence. Anyway.
I'm gonna step off my soapbox now and go study for finals . . . or at least think about studying for finals.
This confuses me, and in trying to figure out how that could seem reasonable, or even moderately okay, given that I've seen a lot of people do that. Seriously, they'll be all, 'some of my best friends are gay people', and you'll see it in action, then they'll see something stupid happen, and say 'oh my god, that's so gay' , or someone'll piss them off, and they'll do the under-the-breath 'fag'. And I get that they've probably separated their friend from the whole gay thing in their heads, and culturally, people of my generation (at least my high school/middle school) seem to have used 'gay' as a substitute for 'stupid' long before any of us, really, were aware what the word meant. Which says a lot, I think, about the people older than us, who were, presumably, the ones that used said word in such a manner.
Anyway, I've gotten off track. But I'm wondering if some slashers do the same thing. They see the pretty boys, and stick them together because 'ooh, eye candy', without really GETTING the fact that two men having sex is, to a very great extent, gay. I wonder if they feel that slash fanfiction, given that many people who write it are supposedly women (and I don't know if anyone has done a rigorous study of that, hence the 'supposedly'), is written for women to titillate themselves, so it's not really gay, or so it doesn't really involve gay people?
So I'm confused, although I shouldn't be, by people's apparent ability to partition things so they don't have to deal with what makes them uncomfortable, or even understand that there's something 'wrong' in enjoying a thing in fantasy that they condemn in real life . . . perhaps I should sub in 'morally suspect' for 'wrong' in that sentence. Anyway.
I'm gonna step off my soapbox now and go study for finals . . . or at least think about studying for finals.