buggery | This is *my* clubhouse: Comics fandom, slash fandom, comics-slash fandom, and gender.

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This is my clubhouse: Comics fandom, slash fandom, comics-slash fandom, and gender.

(The text of this post originally appeared in slightly different form as a response to

harriet_spy's comment in Te's journal here.)

Sarah said, in part:
I think women's presence in the clubhouse is going to make many otherwise decent guys somewhat uncomfortable

See, here's the thing.

I don't think the women (and others) in comics-slash fandom ARE in the comics fanboys' clubhouse.

We have our OWN clubhouse, and boys from the older, bigger clubhouse over there keep coming into OUR clubhouse and trying to act like they're in charge just because we're all sitting around reading comics in here.

We're a lot more welcoming to new people than the big clubhouse is, because we WANT as many people as we can get in here with us enjoying the same (set of -- I don't begrudge Ang her fixations on Boostle and Guy, nor Sarah or Livia their interest in the Ultimates, and I don't think anybody points and laughs much at my tastes) fun stuff that we do. It gives us more people to talk to, and more people who will hopefully contribute fiction, art, meta, or something else to the community.

You present OUR clubhouse with a new way of looking at something in canon, and -- even if we don't agree -- our response tends to be, 'Ooh, interesting! Shiny! Sit down and have some scans/meta/fiction/chatcrack!'

You say something that goes against 'conventional wisdom' someplace like the DC boards, you're likely to get smacked down: 'Batman's not gay, you weirdo!' 'Why would you like Kyle better, he's a total pussy!' 'A girl Robin was a stupid idea but at least she's dead now!' etc.

Now I have an odd perspective on this current battle of the sexes precipitated by

scarfe's comment: I don't identify as male or female, but as something other. I probably respond to people in what's a culturally 'male' mode more often than not -- Te and I have laughed about the way I have to remember to give emotional support when friends are having problems, not just practical advice -- but I identify as a feminist (in the sense that I believe "feminism is the radical notion that women are people") and I like to think I'm a good one.

I'm not a Jackie-come-lately. I was the one who nudged Te into the comics side of DC slash fandom, and I've watched this fandom grow up around us with glee and awe.

I came from slash fandom, not from comics fandom -- I started really reading comics a little over three years ago, but never felt an urge to get fannish about them outside a fanfiction context -- so I'm used to an almost complete absence of males. In all of my past slash fandoms, you were lucky if you could find two males to rub together (though they often wouldn't have minded; as far as I can remember none of them were straight).

I find the presence of a substantial male minority -- still a minority, but a good-sized and growing one -- in this fandom exciting, and as amazing in its way as the fact that the fandom is here at all. (I said for years I'd give my left nut for a large, active Batfamily slash fandom full of talented writers, even before I started reading the comics... Of course, the only one I have is on the right, but maybe that's why...) Hell, we even have those couple of real live straight boys here, meta-ing about the homoerotic subtext and reading and even writing the occasional slash story.

In my book? That all these people are in our fandom means that we WIN.

As for the party-crashers... ~~I don't have any practical advice to suggest for dealing with them.~~ We're going to keep wanting new people who are interested in hanging in our clubhouse to be able to get in. Having a password to keep out boy cooties (or even rude cooties -- oh, for the days when the flamewar-fanning trolls were all female) is not going to work.

But what we can do, when they come stomping into our clubhouse and wanting to throw Te's porn in the trash or pull Houie's pinups off the walls, or even just point and laugh and call us names, is point them right back to their own clubhouse. It's bigger anyway, and if they don't enjoy what goes on here they're *welcome* to go elsewhere.

Hm, I guess I came up with practical advice after all. q:

There is NO reason whatsoever for people who don't like our club to hang out in our clubhouse -- and

scans_daily was never a room in the big clubhouse to begin with. If anybody is only unnerved or disgusted by the few things we do here that the fanboys in the bigger, older clubhouse RIGHT over THERE don't do, then they should go there and leave us in peace. We're not here to be a convenient target for anybody's pent-up frustration at years of marginalisation (been there, done that, show of hands? yeah, thought so), and we're not here to be the subjects of anybody's armchair psychoanalysis either. We're here in OUR space to do what we enjoy doing.

scans_daily post in which the original incident occurred
Livia's reaction in her journal
No, I am not linking to the fandom_wank post that followed.

(Icon relevancy note: Two of the five fandoms in this icon are ones I actively participated in in the past (Smallville and due South) and which had more slash-fandom-normative demographics ...and that's Dick Grayson in the Batgirl costume.)

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So you're suggesting that all rude questions be responded to just with a link to the DC boards? Because I think part of the problem is, we've had to keep quiet and play a waiting game too often in offline life. It's asking a lot of myself, to refuse to defend my spaces online. I also wonder, a little: If it's what works, then ok, but are you sure that's not just the same old girls should be seen and not heard? I used to believe that getting angry solved nothing, until I saw how much better people who got angry did on things like telephone service holdups.

So you're suggesting that all rude questions be responded to just with a link to the DC boards?

No, I'm suggesting all long, reasoned out discussions should be reduced to facetious one-liners.

And now I'll show a little courtesy and actually respond to the serious point you made: *I* have better things to do with my time than 'defend my space' every other week from some arsehole who shouldn't be attacking it in the first place. If that's what you're in this fandom for, pardon me for hoping you get bored from having nothing to do.

I don't use jokes in debates, ever; my serious opinion is that some formal shunning strategy is at least worth considering if trolling incidents increase. I meant that for an abbreviation of the concept, not a mockery of it. My question on that issue of the "don't feed the trolls" method, however expressed, is whether it's worth the frustration of telling yourself to keep quiet. I don't want to be attacked or to get angry, but once the attack and the anger exist, I feel worse if I can't do anything to react to it. I also see how a response in anger feeds into the aggravation that a troll intends to create, so I am debating with myself what would be my best response if something like that happens again. Please forgive me if you feel like this was an inappropriate response to what I read as your opinions on the same subjects. I have also never posted on someone's private journal with the intent to distress or annoy anyone. Would you like me to remove my comments?

I meant that for an abbreviation of the concept, not a mockery of it. My question on that issue of the "don't feed the trolls" method, however expressed

The problem is, that's not at all what I said.

You read it as me saying, I think, that comments like the one that ignited this flamewar should be responded to with, "If you feel that way, please follow this hyperlink I have prepared for you and you can make fun of us with the other real fans."

What actually I meant was, in telling idiots like the recent

scans_daily trolls to bugger off, we should point out that there's plenty *more* places in comics fandom for people with their views to play than for ours, and that it's their responsibility to pick an appropriate forum for their fannishness.

I don't delete others' comments unless they're adspam; people are responsible for their words, and for clicking (or not clicking) Post. Hell, if

scarfe had thought out, revised, or simply not posted his comment, none of this would be at issue right now. If you want to remove it yourself, that's your choice.

I told him to delete that post, but he said he thought it would be disingenous to do so and he'd take his lumps. Silly boy - it's caused a lot of trouble over a few poorly-chosen words.

(deleted comment)

I find the critical analysis in the mainstream comics blogworld often more satisfying than the LJ variety, and I think both would benefit from more cross-pollination.

Obviously when two groups can have a meeting of minds over a common interest and manage to have an intelligent discourse that enriches those of all viewpoints, everybody wins.

But the way for us to do that is not to go to some fanboy-frequented message board and say, "Why don't you idiots talk about the feminist issues in BIRDS OF PREY? I just don't get it. Are you all knuckle-dragging cavemen? All those comments about how hot Catwoman or Supergirl or Stargirl are just make you sound like a bunch of hard-up prison inmates who haven't seen a real live woman in years." -- and we would be rightfully smacked down, if not banned, if we tried to pursue discussion in that way.

(But, then, I am in the relative minority of slash writers who doesn't generally slash except where she sees it as a legitimate and defensible reading of the text, so I don't have the kind of 'legitimacy' anxieties that many do. I can take my slash anywhere without being ashamed of it.)

... hunh. Do you seriously think shame -- however mild -- has anything to do with why more of us aren't joining the blogaround you enjoy? Seriously?

Because, for me? It's all about interest level, and the fact that many of the things I see being criticized in the blogs you link to are things *I* find lovely and fun, with the addition that the critique in question is rarely engageable. I can argue for hours with, say,

derryderrydown about Bart's characterization in TT v3, because she says things like, "I feel he's shown as being too immature," as opposed to things like, "and yet again, Bart is useless."

*Shame* comes in when I find out that the creators are *reading my lj*. Which is a different thing entirely.

(deleted comment)

*nods*

I don't know. I write some cracked-out pairings, but, man, I've got canon to back up everything. That's why I *like* this fandom, you know? I mean, sure, a 3-4 issues is the entirety of Connor/Tim interaction, but a) so there, b) written by Dixon who has *the* say on both characters, as far as I'm concerned.

And that story is one of the most random damned things I've done in this fandom, you know?

It's weird to me that people feel shame for their slash pairings, because, you know... there's canon out there which supports damned near everything.

(deleted comment)

*HUNH*

It's... hmm. I think a lot of the time, I just vaguely choose not to go into my theories when I'm in non-slash environments. But recently... well, over in the comics hubs, I've been outed like *whoa*. (Because some of them know my site, and because word got *around*). And it's... interesting, to say the least. I haven't really tried to talk about my serious theories, because I frankly don't expect a chatroom with dozens of active posters to really be the *place* to have any sort of intelligent discussion.

Then again, people have been bringing it up to *me*, fairly often, and... yeah. Over the past few weeks, I've come to feel I've underestimated a lot of comics fans. A lot of *fanboys*.

And that's some of the other subtext behind last night's post, and I've utterly lost the thread.

Buffy? For *real*?

Thank you for articulating something I've been thinking about all night.

Um. You're welcome? Sometimes it just feels good to vent your spleen. (:

Heh. Well, I actually had a much longer comment, but I had to run somewhere ;).

The thing is, I was pondering the idea that while women do (societally) barge into male spaces (mostly in order to get the privileges that go with being in those spaces), in fandom, they often create their own. And so it's doubly frustrating when a man assumes male privilege in those spaces.

I see my comics fannishness as a subset of my media fannishness, which is a predominatly female space.

*nod* What you said.

I think I came off as a lot more man-hating than I meant to when I posted about all this, but... yeah. You've pretty much articulated what I was trying to say. :)

A lot of people responded angrily, to varying degrees (though on the whole people were also cogent, albeit to varying degrees...) -- which was only understandable, given how offencive the original comment was.

You've pretty much articulated what I was trying to say.

Well, I'm glad my position seems to have resonated with people, even if I am a little surprised, given my left-of-demographic-centre perspective.

I think in circles, so...

This circle (circle one) has slash-or-other-norm/predominately women comics fandom. That circle (circle two) has het/gen/canon pairings norm/predominately male. It's bigger and older.

Most of circle one is aware of circle two, and generally leaves it be. there is some intersection, but not a lot. Circle two is only distantly aware of circle one, and probably thinks it's pretty much *all* circle two. And when they stumble across circle one... something has to break, and for them, it's either their world view (or fandom view which, heh, can be pretty much the same) or circle one. It doesn't fit in their world, and for them, it's *all* their world.

Whereas people that start in circle one are usually aware of circle two, or at least, it's potential existence. More than that, we're aware of subcircles, individual circles, which exist, but aren't entirely *ours*. We feel no need to change those circles because, well, they're not ours. We kind of are happy to know that they exist, but don't feel any real need to mess about with them. Not our circle, not our interest, so we're... not interested (with the qualifier that, sooner or later, someone will post something to get us interested).

But for circle two... like coming over the ocean and seeing all these different countries out there, and reacting like -- what? what are you doing? That's not how it works! You don't *exist*! Why are you doing this in *our* world! That's not how it *works*!. And then there is a live-and-let-live contingent in Circle Two, but, well, we don't see those. We only see the aggressive ones, the ones that view as invaders in *their* circle, and respond by attacking *ours*.

And then there is a live-and-let-live contingent in Circle Two, but, well, we don't see those. We only see the aggressive ones, the ones that view as invaders in *their* circle, and respond by attacking *ours*.

It's true. It can be very, very easy to forget that that contingent *exists*, even for me, even though one of my *most* consistent feedbackers ever -- in any fandom -- has been, well,

d_benway.

Hmm. But is your "circle two" comics-fandom at large, or is it the older group of mostly-male fans who write mostly-gen-and-het fanfiction? Because those are two almost entirely different things, for all that they'd overlap on a Venn diagram.

Circle two is the older group of mostly-male fans who write mostly-gen-and-het. Circle one and circle two are on the big sheet of paper marked "comics fandom at large".

Mmmm. I liked this, a lot. It really does say a lot of how I feel.

*snugs a you*

::shares a brain with you::

I've been following this via my unholy addiction, Fandom Wank, and what honestly springs to mind is the sort of thing my mother used to tell me when other kids were being mean.

Just. Ignore. Them.

You guys (sorry, girls) are in the majority. Just ignore it when Scarfe or whoever says "OMG whut is wrong with you sikk females and your sikk desire for cartoon men and women?!?!?!" Ignore them and they will get bored and go away.

That's a nice idea, in theory.

Unfortunately -- without even getting into the point

marici made above about needing to feel we can speak up for ourselves and defend our own spaces -- it's the equivalent of trying to ignore the big bully who kicks sand on you at the beach. He might get bored and go away eventually, but that's no reason for you to suffer in silence waiting for him to decide when you've been humiliated enough.

Yeah, I agree to a point; but where, really, is the humiliation? You have a community which has a dominant ideology - one where slash is cool and perving at cartoon characters is considered normal. And being female is the status quo. What's humiliating about a marginalised person (that is to say, a male comics fanboy) denigrating your views, when your views are those the majority holds? I understand the concerns of women who feel attacked and marginalised in their offline lives, feeling that somehow they're now being attacked and marginalised in their own space - home invaded, as it were - but they're not *alone* in those communities. You - I'd say "we" but I'm not in that fandom - rule the school. In fact one could stretch the argument further and say those guys are the "queers" in your society. Being that upset by them points to fundamental disbelief in the strength of the dominant ideology.

As for "needing to feel we can speak up for ourselves and defend our own spaces" - I concede, that's important for a lot of people, particularly women. It's a bit different for me, possibly, because I'm a middle class educated white New Zealander and nobody ever told me to shut up because nice girls don't talk back. We have sexism, of course, but I really don't suffer in any way shape or form from being female, and never have. Maybe if I was a third world woman it might be slightly different. But then I wouldn't be on the internet.

(deleted comment)

Well, not always. It's very hard not to argue, or get upset, and I've left communities myself because I've felt severely picked on. But ultimately you choose your battles; if all something does is make me shitty, then I withdraw. Because I have enough reasons to be shitty without some random strangers on the internet making me shittier.

As I said to jack above, your community has a dominant ideology and guess what? It's yours! The only people failing to take their medicine are the trolls.

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This is my clubhouse: Comics fandom, slash fandom, comics-slash fandom, and gender.

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