Feminism - Distractingly Sexy Edition

[Shryke]

Re: yaoi

The few manga I flipped through all depicted high school teenagers who are quite feminized - soft lines, tapered chins, fine long fingers, etc. That is what marks it as something that is marketed for a not-gay-man audience, to me. Although that may be unfair, since I don't respond to feminized men sexually. Perhaps yaoi will appeal to gay men who do like feminized men or gay/bi men who are more liberated in their responses to gender presentations? Compared to the Kirk/Spock slashfics or some of the Draco/Harry ones I read, I do not see a significant level of feminization in those stories. But I am not widely read enough in yaoi or slashfics to say that it is a general trend. But I do wonder how the different presentations appeal to the general audience of female readers.

That is also my general impression from what little I've seen and what I've been told about it.

Like, I'm not claiming to be any kind of authority, but both Yaoi and Slashfic seem to be female (or at least female-dominated) practices and Yaoi tends towards the body type you describe. Though I imagine, given the presence of that same look in many non-yaoi animes, that it's just a Japanese cultural thing. (and I think specifically for appealing to women/girls)

[Lyanna Stark]

On the subject of baby/kids' clothes and men/boys in feminine coded activities:

I know this was discussed in a previous iteration of this thread, but I'm absolutely aghast at how coded babies clothes are. It's really obvious that they are targeting one gender or the other.

Yes, I completely agree with this. It can be quite difficult to navigate. What Zabzie describes from the US seems to be somewhat better than what I've found in Euro-land where more gender neutral clothes for children are either very much high-end, brand stuff, but if you walk down to Marks & Spencer or H&M then it's all very much gender coded. Frustratingly so. It's even more annoying to me from a practical standpoint since I have one child of each gender, and the younger can inherit clothes from the older, but as the younger one is a boy I'm not sure his surroundings would accept me putting him in a dress. (I don't mind it and he doesn't mind it, on account of being 2 years old.)

I definitely agree. A young girl can, in most cases nowadays, walk around in jeans and a t-shirt, hell, even clothes sold in the "men's" section of a clothes store, without a reaction, or having to worry about being judged for it. It's also (gradually, there's a good way to go yet) becoming less 'odd' for girls/women to play typically male sports. But for a male to do the opposite (wear female clothing, or anything which seems to imply the stereotypical idea of femininity) is still very much perceived as embarrassing and strange, and likely to produce some sort of reaction from others. And in my own experience (so I'm not sure how true this holds in general) young boys (I'm talking from age 4/5 up to age 14/15 at the very least) feel a great deal of shame about participation in "female" sports or activities. At my old gymnastics club, there was a male friend who who started there with me. He would often lie to others about doing gymnastics (Oh, yeah, I quit, I didn't like it,too girly. Etc) and I don't blame him, because he was often mocked for it by those who knew (both male and female). And, related to your point, a lot of comments focused on his wearing a leotard for competitions, because "hahahaha he's such a puff" and so on. It's sad to see. Like I say, anecdotal, don't know if this holds true in general or not

I think it's spot on. Even if girls wallow in an endless sea of pink, and least nobody will look sideways on a girl wearing a superhero t-shirt. My daughter has several of those. While if boys wear traditionally coded girly outfits, or engage in "girly" activities, the penalties are far greater. The staff at our nursery is doing a good job, but they are fighting an uphill battle against, well, almost everything. I've tried to tell my daughter that just because her brother is in a dress, it doesn't mean he is automatically now a sister (although I suspect she actually wants a sister half the time, so sort of projects that onto him as well, poor little sod) and that's it's not fair that girls get to dress up in pretty dresses and boys don't get to to that. The justice angle seemed to work the best with her as before that I tended to get, from my 5 year old "boys don't wear dresses, only girls do" kind of arguments. It's awful when crap you expect to hear from the mouths of old-skool social conservatives and the "family values" crowds are regurgitated by your own offspring. :/

The underlying explanation is probably a bit more difficult for a 5 year old to take in, but basically traditionally feminine coded activities and clothing are seen as dangerous to masculinity since it devalues it and destroys it. While it's "natural" for women to strive to wear men's clothing, to emulate men and to partake in a "man's world" since it's more important, better and of higher value, then the opposite of all this is true for feminine coded activities and clothes. You devalue yourself by wearing women's clothing and partaking in feminine coded activities. It is seen as less valuable. It also helps highlight things like why slurs are feminine coded, and why for instance transwomen get targetted by such extreme amount of sexism: why would anyone who has a chance of being a man choose, by their own free will, to be a woman, when it according to society, culture etc. is the "lower form of being".

Julia Serano has some excellent discussions on this in "Whipping girl: a transexual woman on sexism and the scapegoating of femininity" that highlight how something as seemingly "small" as gender coded clothing and slurs are strongly tied to sexist oppression and how it all hangs together.

She writes in the section "Effemimania and the Feminine Expression" that:

Because femininity is seen as inferior to masculinity, any man who appears "effeminate" or feminized in any way will drastically lose status and respect in our society, much more so than those women who act boyish or butch. But it's not only that males who act feminine lose the advantages of male privilige; rather they come under far more public scrutiny and disdain. This is because, in a male-centered world, women who express masculinity may be seen as breaking oppositional sexist norms, but they are not a perceived challenge to traditional sexism (i.e. their "wanting to be like men" is consistent with the idea that maleness is more valued than femaleness). In contrast, males who express femininity challenge both oppositional and traditional sexist norms (i.e. someone who is willing to give up maleness/masculinity for femaleness/femininity directly threatens the notion of male superiority as well as the notion that women and men should be "opposites").

The main WOW for me when I read Serano was to trace how this all worked together not just with regards to sexism, but how strongly this was tied to homophobia and of course to oppression of transwomen. The underlying source and the structures underpinning these phenomenons and behaviours are basically one and the same.
Unfortunately the language might be a bit difficult for a fire-year old, but I hope that I can boil this down somehow to explain in a useful way the mechanics behind this to my children.


EDIT: a short explanation on what is meant with "oppositional sexism" vs "traditional sexism":

Oppositional sexism is “the belief that female and male are rigid, mutually exclusive categories” (13). A man should not have any of the “attributes, aptitudes, abilities, and desires” commonly associated with women, and vice-versa (13). Anyone who does not follow this schema, any manly women or womanly men, should be dismissed and punished for disobeying the divine, natural and social order that deemed the two genders to be mutually exclusive opposites.

On the other hand, traditional sexism is “the belief that maleness and masculinity are superior to femaleness and femininity” (14). This type of sexism specifically demeans all feminine persons (many of whom are females) by characterizing their activities as frivolous and justifying their exclusion from certain jobs and positions of social authority. Thus, according to Serano, sexism is a commonly held belief system that conceptualizes males and females as strict oppositional categories and sets up a hierarchy in which men and masculinity are considered superior to women and femininity.

While most people pay lipservice at least to the first, that women and men may not exist as two yin/yang existences that are different in essentials, most will find the second far harder to tackle.

Further, Serano also discusses feminism dealing with the first, but not so much with the second problem of traditional sexism (perhaps ironically) and gives examples from famous second wave feminist Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique" which deals with the "housewife trap" mostly and which I a. both own and b. shockingly have read all the way through (although the Freudian chapter made my eyes glaze over, for realz). Luckily, Serano is far more interesting.

Serano writes, in the section "Feminist Interpretations of Femininity":

The unilateral feminist notion that women were forced into femininity was further facilitated by the sex/gender distinction, which differentiated between one's sex (which arose from biology) and one's gender (which arose from one's environment, socialization and psychology). This gave unilateral feminist the theoretical means to challenge the traditionally sexist messages projected onto women's bodies while ignoring or disavowing the negative messages associated with femininity. In fact, it is clear that many influential unilateral feminists believed such qualities as helplessness, deference and passivity were essentially "built into" feminine expressions and practises. In other words, these feminists not only failed to challenge sexist interpretations of femininity, but often accepted those interpretations at face value.

I remember reading some of this and going 0.o why have I never noticed that before?? I mean, I've noticed bits and pieces, on how feminine coded activates were things to avoid, or connected to "housewifery" and seen as backwards, less important or interesting, and I'd read Nina Björk's fantastic take down of beauty magazines in "Under the pink duvet" but I just never connected it all.

To me, the categories "oppositional" and "traditional" sexism really help, since it clarifies the divide between "you suck because you are a woman" or "this sucks so I am going to compare/relate it to something feminine".

Hence when someone claims me or litechick or Lany are just not good enough at maths/our jobs/technical stuff cos we're women (or when we just have to cry and be weak in the lab), then it's oppositional sexism at work.

When someone says "you throw like a girl", employs slut-shaming, rants about Caitlyn Jenner being "unnatural" or calls boys doing gymnastics "pussies" or "fags" then it falls within the domain of traditional sexism.

[Lyanna Stark]

Trying to keep up with this thread is becoming a full time job. :P

There are far more women writing erotica than men. It is a predominantly female form of expression.

Now talking about the reasons for why *that* is could be interesting. But I just feel this entire discussion is really just buying into some very basic assumptions about female sexuality. I would suggest more women write slash than femslash because there are more heterosexual women than there are queer women.

That's probably part of it too, although my thoughts on it are that it tells us perhaps more about the context in which female sexuality exists than about female sexuality itself (if that sort of split is even possible to do). What I am getting at is that there are more to the slash writing than just wishfulfillment. And I might add that I encountered this phenomena quite late in life and was initially quite baffled by it and I've never been a part of it either, so my perspective is definitely an outsider's in that regard. Not from an "ewwh gay sex omg" perspective, but from a "why are people so into this? What function does it serve?" perspective, since I never felt I needed it to fill that function. However, even from early on, I got definite vibes that this is more than just an inverse of why men watch faux lesbian porn. Then again, when I was a teenager we didn't have the internet (OH MY AGED BONES) and we were left with the dry-ass text books in the library with black and white pictures and the Cosmopolitan equivalents of the day. I mean, thinking back, if I'd find the Pit of Voles or AoOO at 15...then I imagine I might feel completely differently.

Re: Lyanna

Whatever the root cause, the production of slash fics obviously serves a need for some women. I think all of the things you mentioned sound plausible, but I also think it might be a very direct way for women to manipulate men's sexuality. It is a very different sort of re-imagining male sexuality that does not require consent nor even acknolwedgment from men. I think there's a sense of empowerment in it, both from being transgressive (it's homoerotic) and from absolutely decoupled from what (straight) men want.

But thanks also for digging up the good links. I fear it will take me a while to get to them.

Those are both very good points and I completely agree with that there is a sense of empowerment in it. The "re-imagining of male sexuality" was something I often found as a pretty hotly debated topic in the slash discussions I browsed. As in, is it right or wrong to do it, should you try and stay as close to "the default" or not (and then we land in what the default version of male sexuality would look like and how it would differ from what slash fics describe, which is another interesting point).

Perhaps strangely, as I've been trolling feminist romance readers' forums lately (yes they exist!) I actually found the discussions on the function of slash fics not a million miles away from the romance novelists and romance readers' discussions on the function of romance novels and even in the past the function of bodice rippers. It's also described in "Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches' Guide to Romance Novels" that even though it seems strange and off-putting at first glance, the function of bodice rippers was to handle anxiety about female sexuality and to do so in a safe space were the outcome would be controlled (The arsehole hero might rape the heroine a bazillion times in his sheikh-cave but eventually he'll come around and they'll have a HEA).

Wendell & Tan, in "Beyond Heaving Bosoms" Chapter "Bad Sex", write about that:

The fantasy of the heroine being forced to relinquish her autonomy - and to feel pleasure against her will in the process - may be deeply appealing to some readers by explicitly allowing them to vicariously abdicate control, providing an escape from the control they need to maintain in their real lives.

...

The security offered by the Happily Ever After is nothing to sniff at either. Because the readers are guaranteed a happy ending, they are able to assure themselves that no matter how brutal the hero may be to the heroine, or how much she declares her hatred for him, all will work out for the best, and the hero's assurances that the heroine will come to enjoy the sexual interactions in the future will come to fruition. The readers occupy a superior position; they know that the heroine is wrong and that happiness and orgasms will burst forth like veritable Care Bear Stares, except with more jiggly bits, by the end of the book. The Happily Ever After, while often decried as one of the most limiting aspects of a romance novel, provides a secure anchor to the reader and allows a romance author considerable leeway in the sort of conflict she can present, as long as she doesn't cross a reader's personal line in the sand, beyond which no happy ending can be possible. Rape is that line in the sand for many readers today; it wasn't for most readers in the past.

Of course, this still means female readers have to deal with issues of gender roles, equality, potential pregnancy and all other sorts of headaches, while also being stuck in a context where you're muddying the waters with not just having to deal with female sexuality alongside of the male, but always in a sort of relational capacity and not isolated. However, it still struck me that even though these may seem like worlds apart, I don't think they really are.

Or, maybe my brain just took a left turn somewhere it shouldn't have. :P

Re: emberling


I want to springboard off of this.

I think male sexuality does have its own share of problems, and these problems are inextricably linked to how female sexuality is treated and viewed. On this, the shame associated with an erection is a topic that I've been thinking about for a bit now. I think the shame on one's sexuality and sexual nature is definitely imbued in women, but this associated shame on erection is an area where men are the victims. I can see no objective reasons to be ashamed of an erection in general. In specific contexts where if a man was clearly getting that erection through lewd and unwanted interactions with someone, then that's a problem, but that problem is with the lewd and unwanted behavior, not with the physiological response of an erection.

Hmm, do you think this can be linked to how a "lack of control" could be seen as a flaw? (Because tied to masculinity is the impetus to control yourself, the environment, to act upon the world and be transcendent. Things randomly happen to women's bodies (on account of then being "mysterious" and "uncontrolled" etc), but not to men's? Galactus mentioned before that this could also be since it's something visible on the outside, hence the logic of "blaming it on someone else".

Yeah, as a slash reader myself I tend to think this is the main reason, or at least the main reason on the minds of most readers. This doesn't mean that slash isn't also a transgressive practice in many ways and that many slash readers/writers derive pleasure from that aspect as well, particularly for the queer women who write/read male slash. Also, I found the original article that Lyanna linked to pretty convincingly argued that slash is more than just an equivalent to men watching lesbian porn. It's that, but it also goes beyond that precisely because of how women are treated in our society and women's subsequently fraught relationship with our bodies. In the first scenario, men are mostly just sexually objectifying women, but for women reading slash they are identifying a lot more with the characters. This has to do with how women are taught to identify with the "default" male protagonists in fiction. I think slash is a fantasy of a relationship that doesn't have to deal with patriarchy and misogyny. The article quotes a tumblr post: “For many women, particularly young women […] it’s a way of working out ideas about sexuality and romance without worrying about their own position as women.” This seems exactly right to me. One of the reasons I likes slash is because it feels like identifying with a relationship where no one has to deal with being reacted to as a woman and all that entails.

On the other hand, slash readers and writers import LOTS of heteronomative tropes, but I suppose they end up being able to pick and choose what works for them.

Hi Summerfell, welcome to the feminist thread and great points. I think combined with Terra's comments on how slash can enable women to re-image and manipulate male sexuality and yet remove oneself from the situation so as to avoid dealing with patriarchy and misogyny really sound like good explanations to me.

In general I think that's a positive thing, too, since it provides a safe environment to do so.

However, it also highlights that women and girls then very likely don't feel comfortable doing so in other context. It also makes me feel...saddened somehow that the best way to deal with issues surrounding your own sexuality is to erase yourself from the situation as best you can. (This doesn't mean I think slash is harmful or whatever :P just that it can have aspects of all of these things, both the good and the bad).

[Galactus]

The few manga I flipped through all depicted high school teenagers who are quite feminized - soft lines, tapered chins, fine long fingers, etc. That is what marks it as something that is marketed for a not-gay-man audience, to me. Although that may be unfair, since I don't respond to feminized men sexually. Perhaps yaoi will appeal to gay men who do like feminized men or gay/bi men who are more liberated in their responses to gender presentations? Compared to the Kirk/Spock slashfics or some of the Draco/Harry ones I read, I do not see a significant level of feminization in those stories. But I am not widely read enough in yaoi or slashfics to say that it is a general trend. But I do wonder how the different presentations appeal to the general audience of female readers.

It's somewhat floating, but japanese media tends to have a distinction between gay erotica targetedat women (yaoi, and more non-explicit "boys love") and gay erotica wrtten by and targeted at gay men (bara) these can *usually* be distinguished by artstyle and body-types, although there's obviously crossover appeal.

Interesting lesbian stuf doesen't seem to be compartmentalized in the same way.

[Lummel]

... It also makes me feel...saddened somehow that the best way to deal with issues surrounding your own sexuality is to erase yourself from the situation as best you can. (This doesn't mean I think slash is harmful or whatever :P just that it can have aspects of all of these things, both the good and the bad).

Ah this reminds me of watching television last night and noticing again the plot point wheeled out of the destructive sexuality of the teenage girl who naturally connives to seduce and bring down the good man (who inevitably true to the Daily Male view of human nature is unable to deal with is emotional response) only to be offer redemption by the good woman who understands stepping in.

Its is quite long standing this view of men at emotionally illiterate and both subject to and victims of female emotional literacy. The feelings are the womens' realm, theirs by default once all the economically useful stuff had been seized by yours truly.

Anyhow if your sexuality is conceived as being intrinsically dangerous, threatening, and destabilising, then one way of enjoying it is to remove yourself from the picture. On the otherhand I'm receptive to the idea that slash fiction and m/m romance can work because it allows a relationship based on equality, that apparently too fantastical a notion for m/f relationships.

[Summerfell]

Hi Summerfell, welcome to the feminist thread and great points. I think combined with Terra's comments on how slash can enable women to re-image and manipulate male sexuality and yet remove oneself from the situation so as to avoid dealing with patriarchy and misogyny really sound like good explanations to me.

In general I think that's a positive thing, too, since it provides a safe environment to do so.

However, it also highlights that women and girls then very likely don't feel comfortable doing so in other context. It also makes me feel...saddened somehow that the best way to deal with issues surrounding your own sexuality is to erase yourself from the situation as best you can. (This doesn't mean I think slash is harmful or whatever :P just that it can have aspects of all of these things, both the good and the bad).

Thanks. :) I'm a regular lurker, but since this is an area I seem to have more experience with than many of the regular posters I thought I'd jump in.

Also, yes, it troubles me sometimes as well. I'm not always so certain that focusing so much on slash isn't harmful for dealing with women's anxieties regarding their own sexuality. The quote in the article from a girl who thinks hetero smut is repulsive is depressingly familiar. Slash is commonly critiqued as being misogynistic, and while I think it's more complicated than that I also feel like there's probably something there, even if it's ultimately caused by unfair societal standards/patriarchy that women grow up with. To be clear, this perspective is mostly inspired by my own struggles with internalized misogyny. It's trippy and sometimes causes anxiety to try to go back and forth between fantasizing about "pretty boys kissing" and fantasies featuring yourself, especially when girls or women have self-esteem and body issues anyway.

Though, I should mention now that I can hardly speak for the entirety of the fanfic community.

Perhaps strangely, as I've been trolling feminist romance readers' forums lately (yes they exist!) I actually found the discussions on the function of slash fics not a million miles away from the romance novelists and romance readers' discussions on the function of romance novels and even in the past the function of bodice rippers.

This actually makes a lot of sense to me, especially because some of the tropes about taking away control have been directly transplanted into the slash community and are really popular. I don't know if you're familiar with A/B/O dynamics but that trope definitely emphasizes a loss of control over sexual urges. You can also see this quite clearly in other fanfic trends like soulbond/soulmate AUs and the "aliens made them do it" trope, among others.

re: Yaoi

I'm much less familiar with yaoi and Japanese culture in general, but regarding whether the feminization of the male characters is also a trend in slash fiction, I'd say... not exactly. High school AUs are fairly popular, and the motivation for that might be similar to the plethora of schoolboy yaoi. I'm not sure whether that can be explained by school-aged girls preferring school-aged boys. Also, because fanfic in general is most often written by girls and women there's a tendency for male characters in fanfic to speak and think like girls and women, but I think that's a slightly different phenomenon from what stories girls and women actually prefer to consume.

The trend in both yaoi and slash that I find the most revealing is actually the trend towards size exaggeration. That is, slash and yaoi both tend to emphasize differences in height and size, and slash sometimes even contradicts canon to make the size difference work. This is often connected to perceived personality differences and then is further connected to who tends to be the top/bottom or who tends to be the dom/sub in explicit slash. So I'd say the trend is really towards feminizing one partner in particular in what seems to be an attempt to overlay heteronormative roles on slash relationships.

That being said, slash is not monolithic and there's plenty of critique among the fanfic community itself about these trends, along with slash written as a response to other slash tropes.

On the otherhand I'm receptive to the idea that slash fiction and m/m romance can work because it allows a relationship based on equality, that apparently too fantastical a notion for m/f relationships.

This always seemed to me a partial explanation. The potential is definitely part of the appeal for me and others, but it doesn't fit with the large amount of slash that actually goes out of it's way to emphasize inequality between the partners--exaggerating size differences, linking personality traits with being a top or bottom, etc. This is why I prefer the explanation that taking the woman out of the equation allows women writers and readers to sideline their own anxiety about their bodies and how they are treated in a misogynistic culture. It's complicated because at the same time many women have been taught to romanticize some of the inequalities, so they find their way into slash anyway. But it's at least on a surface level a way to avoid dealing with gendered expectations.

Finally, I'd like to point out that while slash always gets the most attention, it's actually not the only interesting fannish thing that women do and it's not even the only interesting phenomenon in fanfiction. I tend to think that the fan practices and communities surrounding fanfic are actually much more feminist than the content of fic itself. For example, my fandom involvement led me to learn how to use photoshop and some graphic design principles thanks to a forum (of primarily women) dedicated to making graphics illustrating fanfic stories and providing images for avatars and signatures. Vidding is another example, there's a cool article about the history of women doing that here.

[ElizabethB.]

This is all mostly smart and good but I feel like people are doing a huge disservice to their own intellect and to amateur porn, by overanalyzing it.

[litechick]

Regarding baby clothes: Is it the manufacturers that are the problem or the consumers?

Babies are androgynous when clothed but parents can be very touchy about gender. A smooth bystander may avoid pronouns and just say 'what a beautiful baby' but even the most casual conversation is going to require a pronoun at some point and you certainly can't say 'how old is it?'

Deedles, you describe being troubled that someone would assume your child is a boy because of a dinosaur shirt. Would it be equally bad if your boy was wearing a dinosaur shirt and people assumed he was a boy? Does it matter that people know the gender of your child? What cues should people look for to determine gender at that age?

Maybe what we need is accessories with gender symbols so the clothes can be neutral but gender still identified?

Please pardon my ignorance. I am a non-parent and just want to navigate the social minefield.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

Regarding baby clothes: Is it the manufacturers that are the problem or the consumers?

Babies are androgynous when clothed but parents can be very touchy about gender. A smooth bystander may avoid pronouns and just say 'what a beautiful baby' but even the most casual conversation is going to require a pronoun at some point and you certainly can't say 'how old is it?'

Deedles, you describe being troubled that someone would assume your child is a boy because of a dinosaur shirt. Would it be equally bad if your boy was wearing a dinosaur shirt and people assumed he was a boy? Does it matter that people know the gender of your child? What cues should people look for to determine gender at that age?

Maybe what we need is accessories with gender symbols so the clothes can be neutral but gender still identified?

Please pardon my ignorance. I am a non-parent and just want to navigate the social minefield.

In my experience the pronoun is usually supplied to you. For instance, you can ask "What a beautiful baby - how old?" Then the response is often (s)he is [ ] weeks/months. But I'm not that hung up on it. I don't really care if people thought my girls were boys or my boy is a girl. By about 2 years (and sometimes sooner) it starts to be much easier to tell, to the extent it matters. I think it's interesting though how quickly people assign personality characteristics based on gender too. It's fascinating to me. My little guy is a happy, happy-go-lucky kind of kid. He's really easy going and sweet. But people don't focus on the fact that he picks up any stuffed animal he sees and gives it a hug. They focus on the fact that he also picks up any ball he sees and throws it (sometimes while clutching said animal). Then comments like "he's all boy" come out. Meanwhile, my girls weren't that much different at that age. . . . .

[brook]

There is a lot of good stuff here I'll respond to later when I'm not on my phone however given this is the feminism thread I can't really let this one pass without poking a little gentle fun and point out that a gay man explaining the realism of lesbian porn to a queer woman in a feminism thread is one of my favourite things to have happened in this forum :p (also my umm research would suggest that's maybe not the area I'd pick to explain why it's all completely unrealisic)

Of course I don't think the depictions of same sex contact that heterosexuals prefer are always typical of how real gay or lesbian couples normally interact. "Lesbian porn" made for straight men often focuses on activities, such as dildo use, which are not a big part of the sex lives of most real lesbian couples.

[maarsen]

This is all mostly smart and good but I feel like people are doing a huge disservice to their own intellect and to amateur porn, by overanalyzing it.

Right. This is sex. Talking about it does not make it any better.

[ElizabethB.]

Right. This is sex. Talking about it does not make it any better.

Wait, what?

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

Regarding baby clothes: Is it the manufacturers that are the problem or the consumers?

Babies are androgynous when clothed but parents can be very touchy about gender. A smooth bystander may avoid pronouns and just say 'what a beautiful baby' but even the most casual conversation is going to require a pronoun at some point and you certainly can't say 'how old is it?'

Deedles, you describe being troubled that someone would assume your child is a boy because of a dinosaur shirt. Would it be equally bad if your boy was wearing a dinosaur shirt and people assumed he was a boy? Does it matter that people know the gender of your child? What cues should people look for to determine gender at that age?

Maybe what we need is accessories with gender symbols so the clothes can be neutral but gender still identified?

Please pardon my ignorance. I am a non-parent and just want to navigate the social minefield.

Kind of funny, when my older son was a toddler (less than 2yrs), before his first haircut, he had this head full of somewhat long, blond curls and looked like a cherub. I had him dressed in black pants and a black TMNT print t-shirt, and he was still called a girl. I was a little surprised by the mistake since he was dressed "like a boy". (not offended, just confused--could have been that we were on a military instillation, and the default boy hair cut is short), I guess)

While I did correct people, I was never actually offended by those types of mistakes, but I have certainly seen people who were.

I think the Germans have it right in "das Baby" a neutral address and therefore have "it" as the correct pronoun for baby and not offensive.

[Lyanna Stark]

I think it's interesting though how quickly people assign personality characteristics based on gender too. It's fascinating to me. My little guy is a happy, happy-go-lucky kind of kid. He's really easy going and sweet. But people don't focus on the fact that he picks up any stuffed animal he sees and gives it a hug. They focus on the fact that he also picks up any ball he sees and throws it (sometimes while clutching said animal). Then comments like "he's all boy" come out. Meanwhile, my girls weren't that much different at that age. . . . .

This is absolutely true. I'm in a similar position in that I have children of both genders, and then it's perhaps more obvious since the reactions to the children is different even when behaviour/actions are the same. I get "oh he's a real bruiser" about my son, 2 years old, even though his behaviour is very similar to what his sister's was at the same age.

While I did correct people, I was never actually offended by those types of mistakes, but I have certainly seen people who were.

I think the Germans have it right in "das Baby" a neutral address and therefore have "it" as the correct pronoun for baby and not offensive.

My experiences were similar. If they thought my daughter was a boy it really didn't bother me. Not sure anyone ever mistook Cpt Clumpo for a daughter though, although he has inherited a lot of traditional "girl's clothes". But then I had my first baby in the UK and the second one in the Northern Wastes of Socialism & IKEA Furniture, and people tend to be a bit more reserved here and frightened of accidentally offending anyone

It probably says more about the parents' worry and projecting of attributes onto their offspring than anything else if they get offended about their baby being misgendered.

The Germans have a lot of good ideas and "das Baby" is really clever. We have a new gender-neutral pronoun ("hen" straddling he and she in a practical manner) and could potentially get away with calling a baby the equivalent of "it" (using "den" but not "det") but it would be a bit like asking "what do you call it?" with regards to a dog or a cat.

It annoys me from an economical position that the boys' and girls' clothes are so different too and that a lot of the more explosively frilly pink stuff he probably won't be able to wear to pre-school, not because it bothers me or bothers him, but because it will bother his peer-group. Instead I'm going to have to grit my teeth and go clothes shopping again, which often feels like a hopeless business since once you've got items that fit and look ok, it takes 6 weeks and they've outgrown the lot. Or they've shrunk, or they've got magical holes in them from dragging their knees along the ground. Grrrrr.

[Galactus]

to grit my teeth and go clothes shopping again,

Which is probably at least part of the motivation for the hyper-gendered consumer goods: To sell more stuff.

[Lyanna Stark]

Ah this reminds me of watching television last night and noticing again the plot point wheeled out of the destructive sexuality of the teenage girl who naturally connives to seduce and bring down the good man (who inevitably true to the Daily Male view of human nature is unable to deal with is emotional response) only to be offer redemption by the good woman who understands stepping in.

Its is quite long standing this view of men at emotionally illiterate and both subject to and victims of female emotional literacy. The feelings are the womens' realm, theirs by default once all the economically useful stuff had been seized by yours truly.

Anyhow if your sexuality is conceived as being intrinsically dangerous, threatening, and destabilising, then one way of enjoying it is to remove yourself from the picture. On the otherhand I'm receptive to the idea that slash fiction and m/m romance can work because it allows a relationship based on equality, that apparently too fantastical a notion for m/f relationships.

Hah, I feel a new sig coming up "Dangerous, Threatening and Destabilising".

I suppose if you don't feel up for actually battling it out all the time, then yes, removing yourself from the picture is indeed one kind of solution, although it also plays into the idea that women have, traditionally, been made invisible and have made themselves invisible. In that regard, it is a well-trodden path. Plus there is also the argument that by removing yourself (as a woman) you are bowing to the internalised sexism that women's sexuality (and competence and etc) are inherently of less worth than the male variety. What an interesting mine-field to navigate! I feel more destabilising by the minute.

Also, yes, it troubles me sometimes as well. I'm not always so certain that focusing so much on slash isn't harmful for dealing with women's anxieties regarding their own sexuality. The quote in the article from a girl who thinks hetero smut is repulsive is depressingly familiar. Slash is commonly critiqued as being misogynistic, and while I think it's more complicated than that I also feel like there's probably something there, even if it's ultimately caused by unfair societal standards/patriarchy that women grow up with. To be clear, this perspective is mostly inspired by my own struggles with internalized misogyny. It's trippy and sometimes causes anxiety to try to go back and forth between fantasizing about "pretty boys kissing" and fantasies featuring yourself, especially when girls or women have self-esteem and body issues anyway.

Though, I should mention now that I can hardly speak for the entirety of the fanfic community.

I recognise that, actually, from way back when. (To give some context into how long ago this was, and how old I am, :P I read parts of Cassandra Clare's original Draco-fic before the whole fracas broke out about it). Even that long ago, there was a feeling that slash-writers were better and more refined than people writing and reading gen or het fics (the poor fem-slash ones were so few they were almost non-existent).

Part of that was probably because of the many horrid sef-insert fics that were plaguing at least the HP fandom worse than the bird-flu, but apart from that I could never really figure out why there was this pervasive view that slash was inherently better. Back then I guessed that it had to do with it being more transgressive since it featured gay characters, while especially het-writers were considered regressive since those stories depicted more traditional romantic pairings. Put in a perspective of it being tied into internalised misogyny, it actually makes more sense.

This actually makes a lot of sense to me, especially because some of the tropes about taking away control have been directly transplanted into the slash community and are really popular. I don't know if you're familiar with A/B/O dynamics but that trope definitely emphasizes a loss of control over sexual urges. You can also see this quite clearly in other fanfic trends like soulbond/soulmate AUs and the "aliens made them do it" trope, among others.

LOL @ the "alien made them do it". I don't think I've ever come across that, and now I feel I am missing out!

I'm glad you think it makes sense!

The A/B/O dynamics have also been transplanted into the paranormal romance/urban fantasy genre with a vengeance. Sometimes only superficially with "pack dynamics", werewolf hierarchy, the soulmate/soulbound trope and then variations thereof depending on how deep (hah) you are willing to wade into that particular lurid swamp and sometimes far more than that, although it is mainly heterosexual in nature (despite often having what I interpret as probably unintentional homoerotic subtext).

It also matches with what I've read elsewhere in that a lot of feminist romance readers/writers are decidedly lukewarm about paranormal romances/UF since large parts of the genre has basically taken over the function of the old bodice-rippers. Once Snazzy Spunkyvale, the very proper heroine meets up with Hawt McBroodson the highland vampire-werewolf warrior, the authors can invent any sort of supernatural reasons for why it was suddenly Out Of Her Hands. Generally, it's not kosher to depict contemporary relationships with that sort of power indifference and rigid social structures as anything any sane person would actually willingly enter into, but with a supernatural "excuse" then any level of regressive heteronormativity can be utilised with a hand-wave. "But he is a werewolf/vampire/half-demon so he just can't help himself".

Here's a pretty good rant about it by someone who has similar issues with it that I have.

I've probably ranted about it before as well in the UF-thread.

Perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that slash-fic, romance and UF are not worlds apart, since this is basically stuff written by women for a predominantly female audience, and I might add, generally utilising a far more female gaze than is generally common.

Vidding is another example, there's a cool article about the history of women doing that here.

OMG old Nine Inch Nails and Star Trek together, two of my favourite things. Thank you for getting this into my life. *goes off to look for the remastered version of Head Like a Hole* (although Ruiner might be more topical given the paranormal romance rant. :lol: )

[Arkhangel]

Which is probably at least part of the motivation for the hyper-gendered consumer goods: To sell more stuff.

With an added female tax, natch.

[Galactus]

I've recently watched "Star vs. the Forces of Evil", which is a new Disney (!) Cartoon. It's a kind of zany style, a bit "edgier" than Disney stuff usually is (not quite Invader Zim, but still) the titualr Star Butterfly is a magical princess exchange student who loves blasting monsters with her magic wand.

Anyway, they had an episode where she is going through "Mewberty" ("Don't confuse this with your earth things! THis is going to get REALLY WEIRD!") which on the one hand was kind of "female sexuality is threatening" (she turns into a bug thing and starts imprisoning boys...) but on the other hand.... I can't think of any cartoon that has joked about female puberty in this particular way. (she hides in a locker to keep control, but that goes out the window when the swim-team shows up and starts stretching just outside...)

It's just kind of interesting (and the show itself is really funny in other examples) it's on youtube if anyone's interested (I'd love to hear people's thoughts about that episode in particular) it's episode 6, first half.

[Arkhangel]

Double. But a convenient double because all I have to do is edit to say that that is the weirdest cartoon ever, lol.

[butterbumps!]

along the lines of ubiquitously gendered clothing, what are thoughts about the fairly recent (and decidedly aggressive, imo) gendering of previously gender-neutral toys like Legos and blocks?

In particular, I was really disappointed with Lego. I was at the flagship store not that long ago, and my giddy nostalgia was cut short when I got to the "Girls" section. Between the Death Stars and the Arctic Exploration collections was this mass of kits to build malls (malls, ffs)/ other assorted retail/ hair salons or Disney Princess castles out of "girl colors." "Girls" is even a designated category on the drop down menu of their website (because girls can't relate to non-domestic/ shopping scenes and are alienated when confronted by colors other than pink? and that doesn't even get into the issue of boys who might actually want to recreate Elsa's castle but would be alienated by the categorical signifiers telling him he's not supposed to, as these are emphatically in the "Girls" section.)

Goldieblox were designed with the idea that blocks created "for girls" would be empowering ("be a princess but build your castle too"), but I'm really unable to see the virtue of these either. Their brand is all about "being more than a princess," I suppose, because you're an engineer who builds entirely with a princessy color palette?" They're basically Tinker Toys, only color- coded for girls.

Perhaps I'm putting too much nostalgia and stock in my own experiences with gender-neutral construction toys, but I tend to think this kind of coding is counter-productive to the aim of making architecture and engineering more accessible and relatable to girls.