Not Anonymous

Off to the Seaside

2012-10-03T23:18:57Z

Oh gentle readers and beloved friends, I shall miss you.

I've just spend an hour or so stuffing Offiver Kalakaua (my tablet) with ebooks, some of which I spend far too much money on, some gotten by means best not mentioned.

Regardless, I have lots and lots to read this weekend, for you see, it is that time of year again, where my clan collects itself, the entirety of the food (as in far too much, because really? We can't pop over to some shop and get some milk if we need it!?) and sets off on the grand adventure by the seaside.

A long weekend of going to sleep too late due to scrabble, getting up for too early due to fishing and a great many siestas.

Last year I brought one book and barely touched it, opting rather to listen to the podfics I shoved into my mp3 player. This time I'm putting nothing but music on her, so that I can read my the longfics I downloaded and read the ebooks (holy shit, so much lesbian pulp!) I now own.

Lucky me.

It's a family holiday.

I will be back sometime Sunday, and while Officer Kalakaua will be joining me, I very much doubt there will be any wifi for her to hijack.

I might still be around tomorrow morning, depending and how much I'm needed for schlepping.

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The Consent Debate

2011-11-18T14:49:23Z

Hint: It isn’t a debate.

Trigger Warning: This post is about the narratives of dubious consent, non consent, rape, sexual assault, body autonomy (or lack thereof) in fanfiction and fandom, and what being triggered actually means.

Before I begin to dig into this issue, let me put one thing on the table; the only moral issue about sex between two or more adults is consent. Everything else is a matter of what floats your boat. My kink is not your kink and that’s okay – in fact, it’s great, because in fandom we share and learn and discuss these things to a greater degree of openness and detail that in the “real world”.

So, I read a fic. It is a good fic. It’s not perfect, but very few stories are. Much like life, I must say¹.

It is a really good story, which, right off the bat, places the characters in a scenario known in fanfic as dub-con, a short hand of “dubious consent”.

Let me put something else on the table here. In real life, there is no such thing as “dubious consent”. Dub-con is a narrative device, it is a construct of point of view, we see and read the conflict of the person (say, Hermione of “Harry Potter”) whose autonomy has been breached and we know, along with Hermione, that she actually wants this happen, only she’s not sure about why, or how, or some other thing – she just knows, kind of, that she wants this other person (say Snape) to do what he is doing.

Alternately, we have Snape’s pov, he who breaches the aforementioned autonomy and magically (no pun intended) knows that this fine, that Hermione actually wants it. That this is sexy, even if Hermione says “stop” or “no” or says nothing at all.

I use this example from “Harry Potter”, because this type of narrative is so typical in this pairing it is practically a trope. But it is a narrative found in all genres and happenstances of fic, be it het or slash, hurt/comfort or fluff – it is there and frankly, I despair at having to actually talk about this.

In real life dubious consent can’t happen. It cannot. Not because we don’t often feel conflicted about doing something with another person in bed, or because there wasn’t enough communication and the sex ended up being more enjoyable for one of the partners over the other (or others).
It cannot happen in real life, because the narrative in our heads can’t be shared. We can’t know if our partner is conflicted, or not comfortable, unless they tell us. The opposite, of course, is the same.

Dubious consent alleges that Ianto (for instance) can and would fight against Jack’s advances and actions if he really wanted to, this is the context of Ianto being subordinate to Jack in the hierarchy of the “Torchwood” team and their age (putting it lightly). With that in mind, it is likely that this scenario wouldn’t actually be construed by fic authors as an issue of consent because it is happening between two men, in the case of slash.

Consent isn’t about Steve’s (for instance) physical ability to stop Danny from performing fellatio on him. Consent is about the fact that Danny doesn’t care to ask or wait for Steve to actually say what he feels about the idea of it happening at all.

That is the point. The disregard to one’s choice, one’s comfort and one’s own wants (and needs) when it comes to sex is endemic, because the idea that the onus is on the person whose will and autonomy is being violated is simply not true. In the fic I read, there was a clear description of someone wanting to say “No”, but didn’t get a chance to do so, due to the narrative dictating that the “No” or the “Wait a minute” didn’t count because the sex was just that good. Dubious consent hadn’t even been an option here, because this scenario was constructed in order for the inner conflict of “do I or don’t I want this” to be taken as a token resistance as opposed to assertion of free will.

This particular fic isn’t even the only time in “Hawaii Five-0” fandom that this sort of thing has happened. In the name of sexy, how many times have we read Steve or Danny say “wait” or “stop” and have the other guy say “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you” or “I know what you want/need” and continue to do what they were doing despite the “No”.

And yes, “wait”, “stop” or even non-responsiveness when action is taking place in sex is a big “NO”.

You cannot know why a person says “stop” or “wait” during sex unless you actually stop or wait. Possibly, this person has a cramp, or you’re digging your knee or elbow somewhere uncomfortable or maybe, you are doing something that is making your partner feel distressed and things need to change.

When you assume that Steve or Hermione can physically/magically prevent Danny or Snape from violating them, you are perpetuating rape culture².

When you assume that knowing what a character is feeling or thinking when their free will is being disregarded by their sexual partner makes this disregard okay, and when you then normalize this behaviour in your fic, you are perpetuating rape culture.

And in the case in which there is clear non-consent going on when you assume that by removing the word “rape” from the fic magically fixes the disparity in power dynamics and that the violence perpetrated now isn’t sexual or gendered, you are perpetuating rape culture.

This is doubly so, when you don’t warn that these things actually exist in the fic!

It doesn’t make a difference what your intent was, I doubt authors are actively malicious, but when you have a character (major or minor) that is assaulted, whether “live”, or in a flashback or memory, or discussed, that is still a textual description of sexual and/or gendered violence. The assault, whether explicit violence, psychological coercion or disregard to another’s free will, choice and autonomy, is still written down and as such must be warned for, because the words you use are the same.

The thing is I don’t mind that dub-con exists in fic, as it is a fantasy narrative device and everyone has fantasies they wouldn’t want to actually happen in real life. This is why we have role playing and BDSM and actually talking to your partner(s) when it comes to making fantasies come true. In the name of full disclosure, I read fics that have dub-con, non-con and rape scenarios in them, because I like hurt/comfort and angst – I need to be warned for this, not because I have triggers, but because I need to know that these scenarios are going to be handled with the due respect and sensitivity that they deserve.

The respect and sensitivity should be awarded to the readers who do have triggers.

It is no secret that transformative art fandom (fanfic, fanvid, fanart and more) is made of a majority of women and/or female identified people and a significant amount of gender variant people, LGBT men and women, non-white people, disabled people and other social minorities who are all vulnerable to sexual violence, because our humanity and body autonomy is considered inconsequential.

The notion that a not insignificant part of your readership will have been through a traumatic experience concerning sexual consent, and sexually based and gendered violence, is not out there!

It is not only a courtesy to warn for this in your header, it will save someone from stumbling into a scenario that will make him or her feel less safe in their own lives, because their hobby and their creative community triggered their trauma.

But in the end, what I find distressing is that people do not recognise what they write for what it is, and in slash fiction it is particularly endemic, due to the fact that this happening between two men. Because rape culture dictates that between men consent isn’t an issue. Because rape culture dictates that men never say “no”. Because rape culture dictates that men can stop the coercion by virtue of being “strong” and physically powerful.

Dear readers, this is bullshit.

As a community of vulnerable people who often place characters we love in painful and violent scenarios that happen in real life to real people in a society that considers our trauma to be exaggerated at best and made up at worst, we have to consider the consequences of our actions and take care of each other.

One of the ways we do this is to know what it is we are writing and to warn accordingly.

Footnotes:
1) This post was triggered (no pun intended) by a particular fic and a discussion that followed, but it is not specifically about any one fic. This post is about a trend and a trope that is all too common in H50 fandom and in fandom as a whole, and I am using this fic as a way to exemplify and make clear my points.
Back to text.

2(For a clear and concise definition of what rape culture is I would refer you to Melissa McEwan’s post at Shakesville where she writes:

[…]Rape culture is encouraging male sexual aggression. Rape culture is regarding violence as sexy and sexuality as violent. Rape culture is treating rape as a compliment, as the unbridled passion stirred in a healthy man by a beautiful woman, making irresistible the urge to rip open her bodice or slam her against a wall, or a wrought-iron fence, or a car hood, or pull her by her hair, or shove her onto a bed, or any one of a million other images of fight-fucking in movies and television shows and on the covers of romance novels that convey violent urges are inextricably linked with (straight) sexuality.[…]

Back to text.

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Creative Mojo

2011-08-25T06:43:49Z

For the past month, I've written more fiction that I have in the past three years. Perhaps more, I recall the romantic sci-fi novel I wrote when I was 13 and the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Fanfic Role Play my friend and I co-authored at the time.

Good times.

But over the past month I've written a 18K of an X-Men: First Class and am in the middle of writing a truly challenging Hawaii Five-0 fic, which is being cheerleaded, beta'd and hand-held as it is going along, because it is also the fic that will probably be going on-line soon enough.

It is challenging not only because of the subject matter (which has a huge potential of fail and will probably require fresh eyes of a certain perspective to tell me whether I stuck my foot so deep in my mouth is has come out of my ass), but because I'm writing to readers.

I want people to read me.

This is evident by the fact that I have a public blog and it has been going strong for nearly six years.
Sure it's petered here and there, but at this point, it's because I'm writing fic and writing takes time. I actually hope I manage to finish the first draft at least my mid-week next week because then I have to focus on my academic writing. Of which I still have 12K words to write out!

Oy.

My cheerleader/beta/hand-holder has told me more than once that I'm improving, that I'm learning and that I take criticism very well.

Well, once you've spend four years looking at the Red Pen^tm telling you where you went wrong, why, you tend to not view it as a personal failing, but rather as a challenge to prove that Red Pen^tm that you will do better every time.

So, yeah, I'm becoming awesome under tutelage.

And even if the fic that is teaching me to become a better writer has to be shelved due to fail, it will still probably be a seminal work for me.

So, here's to hoping my Hawaii Five-0 mojo doesn't destroy me!

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Happy May Day!

2011-05-01T11:06:52Z

Workers of the World Unite and Dance around the Maypole!

So, yeah, where was I?!

Well, the day after I posted about the Seder, I actually went on a proper holiday weekend with a couple of my friends. We stayed in a very nice lodge with a stable motif. It also had no mobile phone reception(!!) and barely there WiFi (which I cared less about because I didn't bring anything that needed WiFi in order to live).

During that lovely weekend I read one the best young adult books ever and one of the few original Israeli sci-fi books!
There's a sizeable sci-fi/fantacy community in Israel and it's a very creative one too, there's plenty to chose from when it comes to translated works, but when it comes to original work in Hebrew the pickings are a little slimmer and this book was just, oh my god, I really hope it gets translated into other languages soon so that you can all read its gorgeousness.

Right after that holiday I was dumped back to school in which I wrote a crappy paper and probably got a decent grade on an exam.

I also found myself escaping into fanfiction a lot, being annoyed at Glee, being annoyed at Doctor who (I haven't seen yesterday's episode yet! EEK!) and being really unsure what to make of Game of Thrones... it is good. Really good. It's making me want to read the books good, though I have a feeling the books are not as good, because damn, High Fantasy does not like me about as much as I don't like it - that is to say, the series is making me have major, huge, thinky thoughts about many things, but they are possibly not the ones every one else is thinking. Or maybe they are, very possibly they are and I'm just not reading them.

And now, lunch. This year has been brutal on my updating, why!?

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Today I saw...

2010-12-21T09:54:41Z

"Slash, drug use, torture..." in the Warnings section of the header of a Sherlock fic.

I have the story open in a different tab and I'll probably read it later on, but damn, I contemplated not bothering with it.

As I write this, a few other stories have appeared on my list containing the warnings "M/M Kiss" and "There will be slashy sex"

I know, that it appears petty, possibly insulting, to equate Slash fiction with Queer lives. But I can't separate the two issues, especially when it is so acute with regards to a text (BBC's Sherlock) that I find to be one of the few actual canonically queer texts out there at the moment.

rm said it best in her post:

The queering of Sherlock. By which I do not mean that I see Sherlock as gay, bisexual, omnisexual or ace. I don't know. In fact, if the show presented me with a heterosexual Sherlock, and did so credibly, I could get on board with that too, without a problem, because it wouldn't make Sherlock any less queer in the literary sense.
[...]
There is an inherent "other" about him in regards to his instinctive presentation of whatever his sexuality may be, and it is recognized by people who see him, both in the audience and in the narrative. Even a theoretically heterosexual Sherlock is, in this presentation, still queered.

I really couldn't agree more.

What happens in non-fictional situations that actual queers live through is that this Otherness is an inherent part of our lives. I'm not even talking about the over exposure to violence and the fact that our lives are considered forfeit in many ways. To stay on topic, our representation in culture is minuscule (and demographically skewed to begin with) and when it appears it is often vilified.

When I was a kid and I began reading Slash, I discovered alternative narratives and stories based on stories I already loved. Many times, these narratives weren't even "alternative" just, you know, another way of explaining a dynamic.

When I was a kid and understood myself to be bisexual, I watched shows with the knowledge that what I saw wasn't everything there was to get. That within the lines spoken, an entire world of meaning of hidden or coded and all I had to do was expose it, or crack it.

My Slash goggles have been a major tool in my studies of literary theory, even if I was forced to remove them, they were still a part of my interpretative machine.

Slash is not just a genre (it may not be one at all), it is, as I've said before, a conscientious dynamic that manifests a homoeroticism that already exists in the canon texts, whether it's more sub-textual or less (or totally overt, like in Torchwood), because tension between characters is what happens when there's interaction.

When one writes Slash, you're writing an overt homoerotic and potentially queer event, whether there is explicit sex or not. Because a dynamic between characters, is a dynamic of identities.

When one writes Slash, you're writing about identity, you're writing about literary identities that can and do, exist outside of fiction.

"Slashy sex", i.e. Sex between two male characters, i.e. sex between two men, surprise! It happens in real life.

Not only does it happen in real life, people have been punished for it and moreover they are still punished for it, we are still paying the price of the stigma that is placed on people who commit sexual acts that are considered... wait for it... unnatural.

The connection between warning for Slash (as a dynamic of identities in fanworks) and the experience of homophobia by gay people is connected. Not only is it connected, it cannot help but have a negative effect and affect of queer people who are consumers and producers of culture.

Sherlock is a queer text, because it deals with and manifests dynamics of marginalised characters - Sherlock specifically (and obviously) and John to a lesser effect, but still, John, as a veteran of an unpopular war and a person who has experienced war-fare and trauma, those experiences also marginalise him, but we as a culture, have better tools with which to understand John as human.
Sherlock, not so much.

When you warn for Slash, you're warning for Queer. When you warn for Queer, it is implicit that Queer identity and dynamic is dangerous to those identities that are habitually considered "normal" and "safe".

Just like 30-40 years ago, when Slash zines were more marginal and underground, we as consumers and producers of text and textual dialogue, were also marginal and underground.
Gay liberation and Queer culture have come a long way in terms of visibility and in many ways perpetrating and perpetuating homophobia is worse today because we are no longer invisible and we can't be ignored and we have shouldn't be vilified and told to "wait for change".

Things have changed and to see this kind of ignorance of the meaning of the word "Warning", the implications of putting Slash there and ignoring the fact that deciding to ignore queer persepctives on Slash and fandom in general is pandering to homophobia (at best).

I'm not asking for a safe place. I don't consider fandom a safe place nor should it be. But alienating those who want to participate and don't bother to fix a problem that is really so easy to fix, because "other people's feelings will be hurt" is disingenuous.

I may talk about this some more, later.

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This May Become an Unpopular Opinion Thing

2010-10-23T10:06:52Z

I am still not a huge participant in Inception fandom, I comment little and read much, but I read practically everything there in my preferred characters (which honestly it's almost all of them, so I end up reading a lot).
But I lurk, it's easy to lurk and avoid the fail. Of which there is lots let me tell you, of the sexist kind, the hetero-normative kind, the constant use of Magical Healing Cock, dear god and... the racist kind.

However, there is a lot to chose from and as per usual I tend to skip stories I perceive as to be written when the characters are OOC - Out of Character - as in, do things I don' think they'd do or do things I'm particularly uncomfortable with.

Such a story exists and it is currently the topic of debate in this monster of a baby fandom.
The fic is Metaphores as mixed as you can make them by halflinen, which is about, according to the Author's Note summery: Eames tries to incept Arthur. A story of forgiveness, family, fancy suits, and ~feelings.
I didn't read it, because I don't think or I am uncomfortable with the idea, that Eames would ever do something like that to Arthur.
My perception of Eames doesn't fit with his characterisation in this fic and so I didn't read it.

Another thing that apparently happened in this fic is that Eames is casually racist towards Yusuf - one of the only two non-white characters in the movie - and well, readers have said so to the author.
And have expanded upon what they said to the author
There's another example of a different fic (that I liked) that has begun to be discussed, but it's somewhat different as it isn't a character being racist towards Yusuf, but more a use of the stereotype in the narrative to make a joke about something else entirely, but because it is tied to Yusuf and his Desi heritage it can be construed as an unfortunate combination in the material of the text.

Sorry, I went literature student there, be thankful I did say an "unfortunate metonymy".
( There is Meta and a Point! )

And so my unpopular opinion is thus: exchanges, characterisations and textual proximities may be written in a casually racist way, but they too can be interpreted in a manner in which it actually suits the characters, narrative and don't necessarily mean that the author's ass is showing.
Critique of fic is necessary, good and should be a bigger part of fandom. The writing of issues race, gender relations, gender identity, sexuality, physical, mental and cognitive abilities is also necessary, good and should be done with more thought, rather than regurgitate the old stereotypes, however, things tend to be interpreted differently depending on one's standpoint and that also needs to be taken into account.

Now, after all that, I'm going to read some fic.

Edited to Add: I just found an older post of mine that discusses this topic (during the terrible incident of the Haiti SPN story) and I have found that I've contradicted myself in this manner.
So I'll add that I think there's a difference between writing a story framed in a manner that serves as nothing more than a convenient background for the written fandom at hand and thus appropriates and disenfranchises other characters (and the people reading) which are marginalised (holocaut fail comes to mind) and an incident of characterisation and narrative in a particular story.

Again, the line is fine and this isn't a pass/fail thing, none of the criticisms I linked above do that, but is can easily turn into one and that's my fear when critiques begin to deconstruct fics in this manner - not because the critics are being over sensitive or because I'm "all about the art", but because I sometimes feel there is no space left for ambiguity.

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Actors! Movies! A Bunch of Film Reviews and thoughts about slash (duh)

2010-10-12T22:39:33Z

Will wonders never cease.

No, this isn't the Eames of Inception meta I've been threatening, alas, that will probably be on hold until I have my own copy of the movie so that I can analyse every scene he's in - because dude, it's all about the clothes, mannerisms and his turn of phrase and... yeah.

Any way, ever since I saw Inception I've been going over other movies I've missed due to having awful Hollywood taste and skipping a bunch of indie flicks that had Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ellen Page in them.

The films I'll be mentioning are: "500 Days of Summer", "Mysterious Skin", "Shadowboxer", "Smart People", "Whip It", "RockNRolla" and "Bronson".
This post may contain spoilers regarding some characters, but I'll be doing my best to keep plot out of it.

Don't say I didn't tell you!

( In which I go on about Joseph Gordon-Levitt )

By the way, Joseph Gordon-Levitt covers songs by women and listening to him singing "Express Yourself", "Bad Romance" and "Natural Woman" is just fucking grand.
The man is scarily talented.

Watching all those movies made me appreciate him a whole lot more - There's barely an audience here for Indie Cinema and the Cinemateques are not very close by to me and I generally miss screenings and had no idea these movies even existed until I see a mainstream movie, go to IMDB and find out that whoa! These people are prolific!

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is awesome y'all!

Ellen Page is lovely. She really is. Obviously I'd seen Juno, because everyone had seen Juno and I saw her as Kitty Pride in the third X-Men movie and she was very sweet there as well.
I've yet to see Hard Candy and yes, I know, it's a huge cavern in my film viewing arsenal, but I saw other movies instead!
( Now Ellen Page! )

Tom Hardy is a curious case. As it happens, except Bronson (which I will get to), I'd actually seen most of the feature films he'd been in! (he's acted in a few British mini-series and drama shows, which I've yet to see). Like Layer Cake - I've seen that a few times, because of Daniel Craig and Burn Gorman! And there he is on IMDB, Mr. Eames!
Not to mention Star Trek: Nemesis, which really, let's not mention it.

And Rock N Rolla the underrated (and also not as good as previous) Ritchie film. The first Guy Ritchie film (correct me if I'm wrong) with a canon gay character! ( Tom Hardy, I knew thee before I knew of thee! )

Getting back to Rock N Rolla for a mo'.
When I saw it all those many moons ago I expected to go online and find a whole slew of fanfiction! A canon gay character! A canon gay character with a crush! A canon gay character in the same 'verse as Jason Statham! (*wink-wink nudge-nudge*)
And 'lo, there was none. Or more to the point, barely any.
What with Tom Hardy's sudden popularity, the movie is getting rewatched and there were at least ten new fics I've found since I'd seen Inception back in August.

I find that interesting. I'm not really all that sure what to make of it. Especially considering that Eames, as a character, most definitely put ambiguous vibes sexuality and gender wise, there's nothing in the actual text to suggest that he's queer in any way - he's just got excellent chemistry with everyone.

Handsome Bob (Ritchie, you love your Statham^*, don't you?) played by Tom Hardy is very much not ambiguous, seeing as he comes out to the audience and protagonist early on and would appear to have been out to everyone else since before the events of the movie!

I'm wondering if it's because of this lack of ambiguity and the very real reaction that came from the character to whom Handsome Bob came out that there were barely any takers. I have a few fic ideas, but it takes me forever to write and I'm not very prolific, so don't expect anything from any time soon.
The more I think about, it really could be the fact that there was a reaction to the fact that here's a masculine bloke who likes the romantic and erotic company of other blokes, and the other blokes in the movie make it clear that being gay isn't as good as being straight in various and sundry ways - most of them are ambiguous in their malice, as in, clearly the actions were homophobic but it's unclear how much of it came from actual hatred of gay men and how much of it a part of macho gangster life.

That kind of ambiguity is rare. So often, you see a polarised split in reaction, not to mention the gay characters themselves are usually so stereotyped it's hard to watch... but in this film, the performances felt... friendly... a dangerously awkward moment in which I feared there would be yet-another-dead-queer-on-screen... but ended up being sweet and touching, throughout the film.

I think the fact that there was this reaction existed on screen, jostled the slash goggles a bit.

Your own thoughts on this?

Footnotes
* In case you weren't aware, Jason Statham played a character named "Handsome Rob" in the 2003 remake of The Italian Job, where he plays a fast driving British lady's man. Handsome Bob, is also the driver for the East End gang he's a member of - he's also referred to as a "lady killer" at a certain point... only, he's a gay man. Yeah.
Back to Text

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A quick one before bed

2010-08-15T23:19:34Z

If I read one more Inception fic in which the author gives Eames the first name "Jack" I may be forced to say something. And a vein in my head may burst.
Depends.

Dudes! If your first name is "Jack", you do not go by your last name.

Seriously, it's that simple!

Petty reader is petty.

And there really is hardly any love for Ariadne... *sigh*

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More [Holocaust!Fail Fic]... You Have Got to Be Kidding Me!

2010-07-07T09:58:51Z

Via a comment on a different journal, I read that the mod of the My Chemical Romance Bandom com on LJ wrote a response to what has been going down with the aforementioned AU H/C Bingo fic, in which a depiction of the Holocaust, the camps and the treatment of gays during that time was used as a backdrop for angst of two US soldiers.

Yeah, I read the story.

It makes me fingers itch. I want to grab a red pen and mark and correct and fucking rip that story inside out until something resembling "adequate" comes out of it.

The mod, has this to say:

The story was properly disclaimed, and with plenty of warnings with regards to the themes it dealt with, therefore any comment that is not related to any possible literary criticism, should have been left alone.
I chose not to read it at first, because I am uncomfortable with the themes dealt with, and that could have been the choice of all of those people who thought, at first glance, that they were going to find it offensive.
I am not going to ban this type of stories, because I still believe in freedom of speech and because I believe that if we ban stories that refer to that particular chapter in history, we need to ban stories about incest, about BDSM, torture, rape, and in one case necrophilia.

We write FICTION.

WE WRITE FICTIONAL STORIES.

These stories are not historically accurate, these stories ARE NOT just written for sexual gratification.

These stories express part of who we are, what we feel, what lives inside our heads and our hearts.

I hope you will agree that RESPECT for your feelings as readers, should find a corresponding level of RESPECT for the writers.

Emphasis mine
In the words of George Carlin: Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, Tits.
You know what I did there?
I executed my right to "free speech", are you offended?
Maybe.
You know what you have a right to do now?
TELL ME ABOUT IT! AT LENGTH! HOW I OFFENDED YOU WITH MY WORDS!
Yeah, really.

I find it utterly, utterly despicable that criticism of offensive material is considered more offensive than the actual subject discussed.

I hate getting personal about it, but it has to be done, because honestly, it's the only way to get it through people's heads.

I am a Queer Jewish Person.

Depictions of gays and Jewish people during the Holocaust matter to me, on a personal level. You know why? Because whole branches of my family tree were eradicated! An entire Queer European Culture was erased!
After the camps were liberated, gay men were sent to other prisons because homosexuality was still illegal regardless of Nazi legislation!
Yes.
Seriously.

Just to put that into perspective for you.

The story in question depicted horrors which happened. That is not the problem, the fact that it was used in a cavalier manner, disregarded the actual lives that lived through it, didn't bother to check the facts of what went on in concentration camps, the fact that American soldiers were sent to POW camps and of course putting the picture of the Gates to Auschwitz in order to illustrate the story.

Yes, these stories are fictional, that doesn't make them "untrue", that doesn't mean that the you can use the material available to you without considering who it affects and what it might mean if you use it. If you wanted to explore the themes and torture committed by the Nazi regime onto gays, you might want to find out what actually happened to these men, who they were, why they were persecuted and where they were sent to.
Let me give you a hint, none of them were captured POW experimented upon, mainly because non-Soviet Ally POW's were treated with the Geneva convention in mind.
Just, FYI.

Fiction does not mean "free for all". You do not write in a vacuum. You cannot say "Don't like, don't read", that's like saying "Shut up, your problems are meaningless".
Fiction, all art, is a dialogue.
You want to dialogue with history via fanfiction, by all means. That doesn't mean you, dear author, are immune from criticism when you are writing a story that depicts a period of time with gross inaccuracy and decides that any and all critical reaction to said story is illegitimate because it was "just a story".

Nothing, is "just a story".

We do not live in a vacuum, what you write will be reacted to, fiction is not a vehicle of self-expression, being accused of bad writing and bad taste is not a personal attack, it is a challenge to one's preconceived notions of what good story telling can and should be.
Good story telling does not continue the dehumanisation of people that happened during that period of time, it does not use Arbeit Macht Frei as a code for free speech (it doesn't mean what you think it means!) and saying that people should "be nice to each other" is silencing and derailing and basically tells those of us who are affected by the depictions of our history to suck it up!

When I see a story that treats a subject matter that is close to my heart for historical, personal and identity related reasons treated with utter DISRESPECT I will call on it. I will say that this author does not care, does not think about and is not informed about the subject zie is writing for "just a story", for "self-expression", for the sake of "fiction".

To conclude, if you're going to use free speech as a silencing mechanism for critical reaction of a piece of fiction that depicts controversial material... you're using it wrong.

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[Holocaust Fic!Fail] Sometimes... is it even worth it?

2010-07-05T08:50:25Z

Things always hit you harder when they are closer to home.
Always.

I had a race fail a few days ago, in which I basically preached to a woman of Japanese descent why the casting of Avatar: The Last Air Bender was racist.
I was called on it.
And I apologised and I was told it wasn't a problem.

Still, the shame continues to linger, because my privilege fogged the way I viewed this person and the way I discussed the issue with this person.

However, you live and learn right.

Well, no.

If history teaches us anything is that we would rather forget, or even not know and you basically need a very strong lobbying group in order for things to be remembered.

The past month or so has seen so much fail in fandom, the Race!Fail, the Trans!Fail, The Abelism, I'm quite sure there were more fail I'd forgotten and seriously, even though I commented only briefly I was outraged and saddened by all of these incidences. People can (and have) asked me why do I put so much energy into issues that don't have much to do with me (yeah, I know), I mean... why get so worked up on something that doesn't directly affect me.

Well, for one, despite the fact that I'm not in the disenfranchised group of non-white people, trans people and disabled people, these issues affect me mainly because the fact that those groups are disenfranchised I can safely go about my day not thinking about it.

But you know why I really take the time to give a damn and cracks my heart wide open? Beyond it being the right thing to do and being in an ethically sound position.

I want to be safe.

I want my body and mind to flourish, and the body I currently inhabit may have a lot of privileges associated with it, but its history is also bloody, by virtue of it being cis female, queer and Jewish.

My Jewish body is very weird thing. On the one hand it is Israeli Jewish, meaning it is the default body of superiority where I live, on the other, it comes from generations of bloodshed, exile, pogroms and genocide.

The history of this genocide, like most genocides oddly enough, is well documented. The violence was recorded, photographed, duplicated and triplicates by well meaning bureaucrats who kept the train tracks clear.

The genocide of my people even has a special name, The Holocaust¹, and like all historical events which linger in the collective memory of a people, a nation, a community, we tend to treat it with a deference of some kind. Even as I make Holocaust jokes, and sing "Springtime For Hitler" and make cracks about Germany blitzing its way though the Mundial and yeah, I'm waiting for Germany to serve up Spain's ass in the upcoming Semi-Final...

Still.

The Holocaust is an event that continues to shape my life and inform me of who I am, as a Jewish person in Israel and Palestine, as a queer person and as a feminist woman.

It does not, however, as a historical event, exist to be a backdrop to an AU Fanfic about American Soldiers and their love affair. What? The Battle of the Bulge was too tame?!

Yes, someone wrote a story, which has since been locked, but luckly there exists a Screencap (H/T to allchildren). I have not read it. I do not intend to.
I did read the Author's notes though; the warnings read thus:
Beating, abuse, non main character death, scientific experimentation, starvation, physical and emotional damage
Oh and the added disclaimer (after "nasty comments" began to appear) the gist of which is that this piece of work is NOT meant to be historically accurate. Accompanied to this Author's Note is a picture of the gates of Auschwitz, you all know the one, the one that was stolen and returned and reads Arbeit Macht Frei - "Work Makes One Free".
The... writer... of this AU fic stated that they added the picture, not for itself, but for the slogan, the meaning of the words upon the gate.

I've said it before. I'll say it again. I will probably say it for the rest of my life.

Context matters. Context, much like money, makes the world go around. That slogan cannot be removed from the gates it is attached to. Those words do not mean what you think they mean. The work they are talking about is not craft and the liberation they symbolise is not freedom.

A story, does not need to prettify history in order to make palatable for the readers. On the contrary, history should be shown in its grittiest form, it should be shown to be true and it should be portrayed with verisimilitude.

So, when you use a historical backdrop, in which you, dear author, feel the need to excuse yourself that by writing this you are no different from anyone who writes about rape, incest and domestic abuse, then you do not understand what fetishisation means.
You do not understand what treating subjects (people and events) with respect means.
You do not understand what this writing about history means.

You do not understand what context means and beyond that making you a disrespectful, blinkered and privileged fool, it also makes you, no matter your style, no matter how well written the characters are, a really really bad writer.

Personally. I blame Hollywood. And you know, bad education, entitlement and plain good ole' dehumnasation and antisemitism.

Also. No. Just. No.

This Nice Jewish Grrl needs to lie down now as she can't believe fandom sucks so hard right now.

ETA - 09/07/10: The story that is screen capped above is "1945" by slashxyouxup and is now unlocked. I'm not holding my breath though.

Footnotes
1) Even though we were not the only targeted people. The Roma people and other Gypsy groups were targeted and experimented in the same manner, homosexual men were castrated and murdered and many others. Still though, when you've got an entire country (Poland) set up to be an extermination station, while special Commando forces, Einsatzgruppen, are sweeping though Europe targeting Jewish Communities, you're going to feel that this is the Pogrom to end all Pogroms... in a way... it did...
Back.

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The Fallacy of Symmetry

2010-06-21T12:49:41Z

I hate to break it to you, but some opinions are more valid than others.

This is tangentially related to the current RaceFail swooping through fandom and once again it seems that people are misunderstanding what it means "to be silenced" or "walking on egg-shells to keep from offending".

Two years ago, I wrote a post for ibarw which I titled What Is this Symmetry You Speak Of?, in which I discuss the phenomena of silencing the discussion of Race in my locale - which is Israel/Palestine.

Not much has changed, if you saw my previous post (LJ/DW) there is a great amount of fear and hate generated towards opinions that are critical of the status quo.

[ETA]It's important to reiterate that privilege enables you to ignore criticism. What I see being ignored in the discussion is that what is being criticised and brought to attention isn't the right to voice them, but the fact that this is abuse of privilege and bias.

It took me a long time to realise that I had racist bias, surprise! I do my best to be concious of it, usually I fail. Which I guess is unavoidable, but still, it bothers me, it niggles at me, it tells me "do better".

One of the ways of doing better when discussing race is realising the asymmetrical position I have (as a white Jewish woman) in the power structure of the discussion and of life in general. That means that despite the fact that I'm offended by the notion that someone called me on my racism, the hurt I caused by saying or doing something racist is that much more damaging.

Yes, damaging. Not hurtful, not offensive, but actually damaging.

The asymmetry, the imbalance of power between the parties is important because it informs me who has been historically silenced and damaged by the disparity of voices, material resources and media presence. All these are hugely important because without this information you can say, in perpetuating stereotypes, that you're just writing a story, that it doesn't mean anything and that you are simply expressing all sorts of things that stories, media and other tales do.

Because one boy's adventure across the Mississippi, can be another man's continuous verbal assault.
Just as an example to how differently one can read the same story, the same street.

Currently there is a big brouhaha in my locale regarding ethnic segregation in a religious community in a Settlement (i.e. a town situated in the West Bank) called Immanuel, in which a school segregated students according to their ethnic background which informs one's religiosity - the Ashkenazi (European) Jewish people in that town said that the Sephardi (North African) Jewish people weren't religious enough and so the Ashkenazi girls shouldn't be exposed to ideas belonging to the Sephardi girls.

You know what's being spoken about in the News? Whether the Ashkenazi Mothers are in contempt of court or not.

Yeah.

Back to the point. When someone reproduces thoughtless stereotypes regarding people who have been colonised, racialised, segregated and pretty much been beaten up by history like "The Magical Negro" or "Wise Indigenous Woman" - what you are doing is adding to the damaging media representation of people who have been, historically, been shown to be less-than-human.

When you are called on it, the correct response is not "I'm just telling a story" or "You are just looking to be offended".
Stories do not exist in a vacuum and not everyone sees what I see.

Trust me, no one is looking for things to be hurt about.
Honestly, it's just there, all the freakin' time and one gets fucking sick of it.
One of the benefits of fan fiction, specifically, is that you can rectify the damage done by the that book/movie/television show we love, but woe it fails.

Being critical is not personal, it is a standpoint, one that is needed, because feeling that those loud minorities are offending you, because you said/wrote/did something that disregarded that asymmetry of their and your position in life is imperative - especially if we are looking to be better story tellers.

In short, if you feel that you (I and others) are writing something that may offend people; ask yourself, who are you offending and why?

Personally, have no qualms offending people who find my existence and the existence of my friends to be distasteful. I have no qualms saying to people who think that Arabs should stay in their own spaces that that is akin to saying Jews should be placed in a ghetto - offensive? You betcha', worse that saying that Arabs and Jews shouldn't mix? Hardly.

One opinion is considered status quo, the other is not.

I'm not saying not to write certain stories. I do not believe there is a story that shouldn't be told, the question you should ask isn't "Should this story be written?", but "How well written can this story be?"

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Pretty Good Day

2010-03-15T21:19:49Z

Today was full of events and NSFW language!

First my Deleuze & Guattari Seminar prof came into class in the most hideous shirt I've ever seen! Good god, man, why?! Dark forest green with orange leaves, weird grey "blue print" sketches splotched all over.
It was hilarious. I was so distracted. I'm so happy he's compelling in his own right and I could focus on his voice while I stared either at my notepad or the whiteboard.

Then I hung out with friend in which we spoke about eugenics, which always makes me uncomfortable, not just because the subject is disgusting in its own right, but because I have strong associations to Mengele when speaking about race-based genetic research - Josef Mengele is my Boogyman.
Then we stalked other profs we like.
Yes, we're those students.

The highlight was seeing and hearing Michael Cunningham speak about writing. He read us the first chapter of his new book and it has a het sex scene in it. Which was kinda hawt seeing as it was basically a description of a man going down on a woman. I always enjoy hearing the word "clit" in public. He spoke about the female sex organ being either medicalised ("Vagina", blech) or, ya know, just demeaning (if you're not into reclaiming "cunt" or "pussy"), which was great too.

I like Cunningham's work, The Hours is an amazing book and got me looking at Virginia Woolf in a different way and appreciate her even more. I told him so and I even got a bit emotional, it's not every day you meet an author you appreciate and had an affect on your life.

I didn't expect him to be such a large man, then I again, I always imagine myself as much bigger (sometimes I feel like I've got a Hulk wanting to rip out of my skin... but that's when I'm angry... usually I'm simply a huge uber-nerd-geek fangrrl monster).

Last but not least, I had a Sign Language lesson today and got the gumption to ask my instructor how you say "gay" and "lesbian" (she didn't even know what "bisexual" was, so I gave up on "queer") and friend... I knew ISL would be sexist language, after all Hebrew and Arabic are very gendered, but I seriously didn't expect the Signs to be so unabashedly homophobic.

Gah, when she showed me the sign for "gay" I wrinkled my face, for "lesbian" I just burst out laughing... it's so rude! How would you make that Sign in public?!
Any way, I've decided that once I'm a bit more proficient and speak to some Queer Deaf people that there be changes done to those words.
And find out what the words, should they exist, for "bisexual", "queer", "transgender" and other pertinent words for the community.

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