(no subject)

[beachlass]

I don't know whether to laugh, or bang my head against the wall.

"Thanks largely to the feminist and gay and lesbian movements, few of us can now hold to rigid notions of gender. We have not only been challenged to stretch the boundaries of traditional gender roles, but many of us have discovered new, often unexpected possibilities. For example, many women report the delight of learning how to bring themselves to orgasm, thus shattering the myth of the frigid, nonorgasmic female dependent on the male for sexual climax..." Marvin Ellison

I mean, I know, and the whole 70's thing with circles and mirror and speculum... and the doctors who used to 'manipulate' 'hysterical' women to 'paroxysm' for relief... but are we really so hopeless that we couldn't figure out how to get ourselves off? Is it really a "new and unexpected possibility"?

But... how much fanfic does this remind you of: "patriarchal sex depends on a dynamic of conquest and surrender, of winning control over or of being placed under someone else's control. Opposites attract. Inequality is sexy.

Kakashi, Colonel Mustang.... I'm looking at you.

Comments

[eshala.livejournal.com]

I don't think you are losing at them at all!

I really do think that some of the oh-so-scripted fanfic is written by folks who are either not very personally experienced, or are just sticking to canon/scripted sex. Which is too bad.

I used to have huge arguments with folks about whether I was femme or butch... as if a label could ever fit me well ;) And the whole idea of needing to be either top or bottom has never suited me all that well either... but the freedom to have sexuality and sexual expression be as fluid as fits is so important. Whether you are queer or straight or choose to identify in whatever way suits the moment... People seem to consistently need the grounding points of what they have been taught (to accept or rebel against), which in turn further scripts the interactions.

*sigh*

[thursday-kat.livejournal.com]

mmm...canon/scripted sex just sort of breeds...i'm always jonesing for something a little different, for a deeper understanding of how that particular author thinks that character would act in such a intimate setting, not just the "he's bottom so i add his name here and he's top so his name goes here..." scripty poo...just...ugh

and i love how every sexual situation is the same....(and yes, i'm probably guilty of this in my own fic, as i've whined about to beachlass, but i am trying...)

and i totally agree, sexuality and sexual expressions do need to be fluid! anyone with any sort of experience at all should (in theroy) understand that

i still subscribe to kakairu (even though i rarely read it anymore), and one of the posters there is male (admitedly unusual) who said just wrote iruka as if he was the same as the his girlfriend....and i think female authors do the same, unable to understand, personally, homosexual 'relations' (for lack of a better term :P ) they find it easier to make the connection by making one of the men a "woman with a penis."

i'm slightly amused, thinking about it, that most of the yuri i've read has far less of the femme/butch stereotype than yaoi has of the seme/uke...i wonder why that it

[eshala.livejournal.com]

I think that the lesbian/queer female community has done very different work around gender identification in the past ten years than the gay/queer male community has. With the rise of transgendered communities, along with the changing (broadening) roles women have held within mainstream society, and the changing nature of sexual discourse, the labels within the queer (women's) community have changed pretty radically. The confluence of queer, trans, polyamourous and bdsm communities, when further combined with a penchant for processing has created a situation in which it feels like the butch/femme dichotomy has been pushed over into a corner.
Sometimes I miss it like the guilty pleasure that comes from dressing up in ueber-femme clothing...

I think that the latent socio-normative roles for men have not yet undergone an equal amount of change.

Yikes. My brain seems to be stuck on theory mode.

The scripts for manly-ness have not been stomped on as much as the scripts for womanly-ness. And so, in order for yaoi to be 'okay' people regress to socially defined gendered roles.

Stupid society.