this post has so much going on that i guess i gotta write a whole essay so here we go
as a gay man, i can say with full and total confidence that more often than not, women’s consumption of our relationships, and our sex lives, and our trauma is fetishistic. it’s not about fighting heteronormativity. it’s really not that deep.
finding another man loving man in fandom is incredibly difficult, especially in shipping circles. i’ve been in the tumblr business for almost seven years, and i’ve met maybe 1 or 2 guys total who write slash besides me. slash fiction is dominated almost entirely by women and woman-aligned people, and it’s been this way for a very long time. even a good amount of smutty slash fanzines in the 70s-90s were written by women who liked to write about boys fucking. when i met another guy who wrote slash fanfic, i was completely shocked. it had taken 6 or so years to meet him, and i was completely bowled over. and i just thought “boys don’t write about boys loving boys, that’s not our thing”. but what i wanna know is why isn’t it our thing???
why aren’t most slash fanfics written by boys who love boys? why isn’t a genre, a subculture ABOUT US, something that we’re seemingly not allowed to participate in? why do we feel like outsiders when writing our own stories? why are some of them most praised “gay shows” and “gay books” (for example, the song of achilles and yuri on ice) all written by women, and read by women, and aren’t really catered towards gay men at all even though we’re the SUBJECTS of the story.
when you go through websites like goodreads and look under the “gay romance” section, you see names like madeline, jane, abigail, marie, amy. i mean, abigail roux’s writing alone probably takes up half the list! you might see a sean or a david thrown in, but for the most part, stories about men loving each other are written by women. ones that are written by men often don’t get the attention reigned in by the foxhole court and cut and run. that’s where the issue lies. in a community supposedly dedicated to us, our love, our sex, our relationships, we take the back seat. we don’t get recognition. we don’t get control. we don’t get to tell OUR stories OUR WAY.
not to mention, much of slash has always been smut. and that smut, for a lot of questioning boys who love boys, that’s our first exposure to sex between two men. i know it was for me. but when it’s written by someone who’s never been a man having sex with a man (and no, if you’re a cis girl having sex with a cis man is not the same way trans men have sex with cis men, but y'alls abysmal treatment of trans men will have to wait for another post), it’s often written inaccurately and unsafely. not using a condom? unsafe. spit as lube? definitely not safe. SHOVING IT IN???????? REALLY NOT SAFE. rimming someone without having them clean or use an enema first????
not only unsafe, but also really gross. the general consensus (and yes i asked) about this is that safe sex has been deemed by slash shippers to be “boring”. they want to get right to the fucking, no time for prep (which is literally the most important part), no time for cleaning, no time for lube, no time for protection. this is incredibly dangerous for young men who love men who are trying to figure out all the different ways that we can make love to each other. if this is their only exposure, they’re going to think that doing this is okay. they’re going to think “yeah, i can just shove my tongue into someone’s dirty asshole” or “i don’t have to prepare my partner before shoving very large into something very tiny” which is not the case and will get people hurt. i know fic isn’t supposed to be a sex ed class, but the lack of sex safety is really concerning.
and when men who love men like myself bring up the fact that maybe you guys should stay in your lane a little and let us take the wheel in a genre entirely dedicated to us having sex with each other, you somehow claim that we are “kinkshaming” you and being misogynist by taking away “the one place where women can explore their kinks without judgement”. which is complete and total bullshit because FIRST OF ALL gay people are not your kink. we are not your fetish, we don’t exist for your entertainment or your gratification. if you really think that two men who make love to each other is your “fetish”, then maybe that’s telling you something. human beings aren’t kinks. so fuck outta here with that.
and the obsession with boys enduring homophobic and sometimes transphobic abuse and rape for the sake of ~angst~ and hurt/comfort is uh pretty fucked up. the obsession people have with gay trauma is by far the most disturbing of all. like so many woman slash writers go out of their way to subject gbt male characters to all sorts of injury and abuse just so they can be ~comforted~ and possibly get comfort sex. the idea that you want to see us hurt just because you think it’s cute when we comfort each other isn’t okay. like, didn’t someone want to write a check please fanfic about the pulse shooting??? yeah how can any of you look at that and think it’s okay. it’s not okay. in no world is that okay.
so this brings me to your claim that if gay/bi/pan men (including trans men and male-aligned people) tell you to maybe chill out and maybe let us write stories about us for a change, that’s a misogynistic/homophobic/shallow statement. this just blows my mind. i need a little more clarification about why it’s such an evil no-no for us to want to represent ourselves or speak for ourselves or tell our own stories. because it kinda seems homophobic that you’re so angry about gbt men wanting to represent themselves. it almost sounds like you only think our love and our sex and our lives exist only for you to write and read about. you’re making it sound like we are objects made for your consumption, and by establishing ourselves as real people is ruining your fantasy.
nobody’s saying you can’t be supportive of gbt boys and want to write about them in your stories. but for the love of god, don’t get angry when we want to tell our own stories, and don’t pitch a fit when we express that we’re uncomfortable with being objectified for your own sexual gratification.
tldlr; men who love men have never existed for your consumption. we are not your “escape from heteronormativity”, we are not your “safe space for kink exploration”, we are not your favorite ships, we are not your kudos on ao3. we are real men with real stories who want a chance to express ourselves in a genre that’s about us but that we seemingly aren’t allowed into. we are people, and we deserve to and be seen as people and treated like people. stop speaking over us and invalidating our concerns about how we’re being treated. and that’s the tea. 🏳️🌈💁♂️☕️
